


Diplomatic Discrepancies

by Aithilin



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alpha Nyx Ulric, Alpha Ravus Nox Fleuret, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Cultural Differences, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Established Relationship, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Good Parent Regis Lucis Caelum, Imperial Prompto Argentum, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Not porn, Omega Noctis Lucis Caelum, Omega Prompto Argentum, Pack Dynamics, Politics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:22:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 37,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25852060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aithilin/pseuds/Aithilin
Summary: When the Nifs went ahead with the plan to capture the Crown Prince of Lucis, it was with the understanding that they would be dealing with the alpha heir to the enemy. All plans had been made with that crucial piece of information assumed.Plans need to change when it comes to light that Noctis Lucis Caelum is actually an omega.Now in Nif captivity, Noctis needs to navigate the delicate political landscape while dealing with some glaring cultural differences he had never been prepared for.
Relationships: Gladiolus Amicitia & Prompto Argentum & Noctis Lucis Caelum & Ignis Scientia, Noctis Lucis Caelum/Nyx Ulric, Ravus Nox Fleuret/Noctis Lucis Caelum
Comments: 104
Kudos: 162





	1. Chapter 1

Every scrap of information gathered over the years had pointed to the Crown Prince of Lucis being an alpha. A beta at the very least. Every report and news clip that had crossed the border, every puzzle piece smuggled from within the Lucian Wall, every rumour and reference to the Crown Prince had indicated that he was naturally an alpha like his royal father. To Niflheim sensibilities, there was no question that this assumption was correct— the boy exhibited no signs of any alternative to their observations and understanding of the natural world and natural order— when they made their plans before peace was even proposed. They had set their plans into motion based on this supposition based off years of study that confirmed the boy’s confidence and power, his poise in battle scenarios and his natural strengths. 

Their plan had all hinged on this singular detail; this confirmation that the only son of the great enemy of the Niflheim Empire was a real threat. An alpha to be subdued and ransomed. A prisoner of value to Niflheim sensibilities and propaganda.

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely, your Grace,” Besithia said, the ever present sneer like oil in his words. A hand lifted to indicate the reports that had been handed over just moments ago— the imaging and blood work all conclusive evidence of a problem they had not planned for. “The Prince is an Omega.”

“And just,” the Emperor clutched the report like the wyvern of his sigil gripping its prey. If the papers had been made of sturdier stuff, it would have cracked like bones; “what does this mean for the plans?”

“It means,” Besithia started, quick mind already reassessing every scrap of information that had dribbled through their airtight borders over the years; “that—”

“So sorry to interrupt, your Grace.” A shadow crawled across the sterile floors of the labs, the air curling in the wake of a long coat meant to stave off the worst of the Gralean chill. Ardyn offered an almost lazy tip of his hat in greeting to the monarch now turning his glare away from the medical reports gathered regarding the Prince held captive in some cage of a room in the bowels of Besithia’s little fortress; their long awaited victory souring in one sickly sweet word, though the Chancellor only offered a smirk in response to the withering look. “But if I may say so, this news means that we are absolutely no longer at an advantage in these negotiations.”

“And you feel the need to just offer this insight, Chancellor?” the Emperor composed himself. Years of planning had been dashed with a single phrase that could have easily been confirmed by their own spies within the Lucian provinces. There would be mistakes made, he assumed, but not of this magnitude. And certainly not under the conniving eyes of the Chancellor who had laid out each detail in such fine order. “Or do you intend to help?”

“Oh, your most illustrious Eminence, I intend to help in any manner that I can.” The Chancellor offered another bow, an outright mockery of courtly propriety that Aldercapt would have not tolerated from any other subject. His ridiculous choice of scarf slipped loose enough to brush the pristine floors just before his shining boots. The ever present hat the Chancellor favoured lifted and flourished in one hand as if to spite all Imperial decorum. But the Chancellor, as always, seemed immune to the threat of the Emperor’s presence and power. “And in this matter, I suggest you return the boy to his father.”

“Return the boy— Are you mad?” 

It was unfair that a storm was not raging beyond the tall windows of the conference room where this meeting had been called. A blizzard, pellets of stinging ice, winter winds that could peel skin flesh and blacken unguarded hands in minutes would have been a more suitable backdrop for the rage rising at this snafu. At this breakdown of nearly a decade of plans and carefully constructed stories to feed into the propaganda machine ready and waiting to be released to turn the war-weary people against the stalemate of a peace accord. Instead, the valley outside with its crystalline frozen lake was sunny and blindingly bright. 

“We have laws, your Radiance,” Ardyn said, as if none of them were already aware of that. “And an omega is under the protections of his or her family even if not a citizen of Niflheim. The boy must be returned to his father safe and sound as per your own decree. Anything less is an act of war. Even treason, if the infallible logic of your wise governance is to be held in its highest regards.”

“Unless,” Besithia broke his silence with a pensive finger against his chin; “no one else knows. The staff is expendable, you needn’t worry over that. But has Lucis made this known? Has it reached our people in any way?”

“Alas,” there was a dramatic talent in the manner in which Ardyn could let a seemingly genuine tone of distraught seep into his voice. When thirty years before he had barely let any emotion float between them in the cold air other than a frustrated disdain. Now, the Emperor knew the emotion was a farce and all part of the creature’s mask, but the flair was still impressively realistic; “it has. Which is precisely why I rushed to this wasteland retreat as quickly as I could. Whatever manner the Lucians have used to infiltrate our airwaves have let slip that the darling Crown Prince is not only an eligible omega, but also missing from a diplomatic and sanctioned pilgrimage to the Lucian tomb in Cartanica. The news of the Prince’s true nature will reach Gralea by nightfall. Though I expect it already has started to seep into the rumour mill of the court.”

“So it’s out.” Besithia grumbled arms crossing again as his mind worked to resolve this new problem. “They can’t accuse us of anything.”

“Not without proof, of course. But I can assure you, the Lucian High Council really does suspect that the Prince who was visiting Niflheim territory, while on a Niflheim train, under Niflheim guard has fallen to our clutches.”

“You want us to admit deceit?”

“Dear no, Verstael. I want us to not start a new war when peace has only just been reached.”

Aldercapt’s impatience echoed against the sterile walls. “You have a plan, Chancellor. Speak it.”

“Like I said, we return the boy to his father, as per your own just laws, your Eminence.”

“But?”

The smile Ardyn let slip was little more than a fanged grin had the situation been less focused on navigating the diplomacies of their now delicate position. And alpha could be a prisoner— an aggressor in a strained situation, subdued and taken into custody— and a beta could be a harmless visitor. Both were plans they had discussed to cover any mishaps and gossip that let slip before they were ready. But an omega… An omega in Niflheim was the victim of their circumstances— guarded, protected, their freedom of movement curtailed by their family’s permissions— and were far too delicate to be viewed as any sort of real threat should they release the news stories that had been planned in advance. They all knew this; the original stories that had sat ready to be spooned to the masses would be a farce now— laughable to a population that viewed the true traditional value of omegas as a law of nature. 

Ardyn had orchestrated those first inklings of press releases and stories that would seed the resentment for the Lucian Prince. 

“But,” Ardyn agreed; “we act the host first. The poor darling may be injured, or traumatized by the ordeal. An attack by warmongering traitors, rescue by the true Niflheim guards who acted in his best interest to bring him to medical attention where it is safe. The delicate slip of a thing must be so frightened away from his family and guards.”

Besithia scoffed and gestured to the door that would lead to the medical bay usually reserved for his experiments and specimens; “You want to present that little beast as a helpless omega? He’s already broken the arm of the porter who failed to administer the full dose of sedative when moving him.” 

“Lesson learnt for your expendable staff,” Ardyn sniped before returning his attention to the Emperor. “Diplomatically, I assure you. He would be a protected guest.”

“And your plan, Chancellor?”

“Still a possibility.” Ardyn offered a solemn nod, as if nothing had changed in his plans. In their plans to bring Lucis under the control of the Empire once and for all within the terms of the peace treaty they had agreed upon. “We will just need to adapt a few minor details.”

*~*~

When Noctis woke, it was not in the sterile and bare room he had first been in that had smelled like disinfectants and chemicals and metal. There was no ominous hum of medical equipment or rumble of distant machinery. It wasn’t a small cell with one wall replaced with glass, as if for observation of a specimen in some mad scientist’s lab. And the bed was considerably larger. He’s fairly certain that he noticed the bed first. 

When Noctis woke, it was with the groggy haze of an unnatural sleep still pulling at his mind, urging him back beneath the warm covers that were definitely different than what he went to sleep under. There was a warm breeze coming from somewhere nearby, and the soft scent of lavender soothing the room with each movement. The room was so large that he couldn’t see the door at first. He suspected the archway that was barely in the line of sight of the large, inviting, and very warm bed led to an entry way or antechamber, but he didn’t want to move just yet. The lights were dim, a faint warm glow along the floor that seemed to be more of a guide than any real light source. 

And the windows were definitely not in the strange little cell he had found himself in the first time he woke after the attack on the train. The heavy curtains were drawn, but they crossed an entire wall. The heavy pleats had only a handful of seams between the panels, but the glittering lights of a city was something he was more familiar with even at just a groggy glance. He knew city lights when he saw them. But he wasn’t home. The distant twinkle and shine of a living city glimpsed through the breaks in the nearest curtains seemed to be too far below him, looking up rather than surrounding him. Distant and disorienting stars that made his head swim. 

He forced himself to sit up, ignoring the ache beneath his ribs and along his sides. He vaguely recalled a moment when there was something digging into him as he lay in a state between sleep and rage. He remembered the prodding and poking, the restraints and nips of pins or needles or both digging at him in his haze. He tried to take a deep breath and felt a pinch and tug at his side, and looked down to see the stark white of wrapped gauze around him. Even that small movement shot pain through his back and he fell back with a groan into the softness of the bed. 

“Shit.” He muttered through the haze of whatever he had been given and the softness of the lavender released by his sudden return to the nest of pillows. 

He breathed deep, and realized that there was something wrong. The aches and pains were one thing— he could manage those easily enough— but he couldn’t feel the familiar warmth of the Crystal in the back of his mind. He raised a hand and concentrated, picturing the sword he had used since he turned sixteen. He imagined its weight and shape, and the feel of the hilt in his hands as the elemental powers stored in its little canisters hummed their natural calls to him. He thought of the look of it, the phantom outline that had always appeared before the Crystal released it to his hand. And nothing came. There was no familiar weight or phantom image of his favoured weapon, no small sensation in the back of his mind like a lock clicking open as it used to. 

Nothing happened. No weapon, no spark of magic. Not even the slightest sensation of heat from the fire he had first learnt to conjure in his hand. There was only the dim light of the strange room and the scent of lavender calling him back to sleep. He let his hand fall back to his side with a frustrated growl. 

For once, in as long as he could remember, his magic was silent.

“Shit.”

He wasn’t sure when he had fallen asleep— or if he really had— but when he woke the room was no longer dim. Daylight streamed between the drawn curtains where he had glimpsed the glitter of the city, it was amplified by the bright lights of the modern room. Or he assumed it was modern. Looking around now— more awake and in the real light of day— it wasn’t the streamlined and clean look of Insomnia. It wasn’t the rustic and cobbled collection of history of the rest of Lucis beyond the former borders of the Wall. 

But it looked like a hotel and had the clean feel of an unused guest room. Laying in the too-big bed, he saw that shelves had been what blocked his view of the entryway when he first woke. They served as partitions to cage in the bed— hiding it from immediate view of the larger and open area— laden with books and trinkets that all seemed like familiar little comforts. They broke the room into halves; one half where the bed dominated, with a little guiding trail he had seen in the dark to what he assumed was a bathroom. And one half dominated by a table and desk, a little seating area designed with wide sofas and comfortable chairs. That portion narrowed to the entry; the door hidden by an arch as he suspected like an antechamber set to separate the outside world from the inner sanctum of this room.

Unmoving from the bed, he watched someone putter around that large round table. The smells of food— warm and sweet— reached him as plates were shifted with the softest of clatters and chiming rings. The man’s boots silent on the plush rust coloured carpets of the floor as he moved in careful steps around the table. The man was slight and young— Noctis assumed his age at a guess— and clad in the stark Nif whites but didn’t seem like a threat in the morning light. His clothes were a uniform, but not the heavy material of armour or the course utilitarian lab coats Noctis recalled from his haze of capture.

The young man jumped in surprise and nearly tripped over his own feet when Noctis cleared his throat and sat up. 

Cutlery clattered against each other as he dropped it, an empty glass tipped and threatened to roll from the table, and Noctis decided that the visitor was definitely not one of the armed guards or laboratory porters meant to keep him in line. 

“Ah,” the young man stammered, “Hi. I mean good morning, your Highness. How’re you feeling? Breakfast?”

“Who the hell are you?”

The question gave them both pause. 

This was hardly a cell, but Noctis had no doubt that it was his current prison. The young man stared wide eyed and surprised, still in that startled confusion that had snapped this moment into place. He didn’t want to, but Noctis felt guilty for the harsh tone and sudden demand, especially as the young man sheepishly scratched at the back of his head with a small laugh. 

“Right. Sorry. I’m Prompto.”

Noctis waited for more explanation, when there wasn’t any coming, he struggled up, hand on his bandaged side for support until he could judge just how much support he needed. The pain was a dull ache that crossed his side and back, but he could breathe and he could stand, so he looked over Prompto and made the decision to at least try to appear stronger than he was. He wondered, as he got out of the wide, soft bed, what Ignis would have made of the situation. Or Gladio. 

He hesitated between diplomacy and some sense of normalcy, until his stomach made the decision on decorum for him. He blushed; “Sorry. Prompto, right. You’re a Nif.”

It was a statement, but Noctis started to doubt the assessment. Another look as he neared the table and he realized that Prompto was an omega— the first he had seen since the civilians on the train and at the station in Cartanica. Slight with softer features, but he seemed coiled with energy, active and chipper if his tone was anything to go by. The clothes may have been some sort of uniform, but they were too light to be armour, just as he suspected. For the moment, there was no sense of threat from the young man, just a shy nervous energy that kept him balance on the balls of his feet and fidgeting. 

Noctis had years assessing threats. In training, he had watched the Kingsglaive and Crownsguard with Gladio’s more careful eye pointing out tells and tricks— the little movements made and shifts in weight that would broadcast an attack in the hot dusts of the Glaive training yards or in the cool stone confines of the Citadel training rooms— until he could read them without thought. He had spent hours watching his father hold his Court and speak to his Council, listening to Ignis’ expertise on telling who was lying or withholding information by the way they shuffled their papers or held their hands on the tables. He could practically hear Ignis’ voice analyzing the young man before him, just as easily as he could hear Gladio’s cautions ringing in his ears. 

But the young omega— Prompto— seemed to be anything but a threat in the way he held himself. His shoulders curled forward if he was still for too long, he fidgeted, his eyes never quite met Noctis’ own. But he offered a smile anyway; “A Nif with breakfast, if that helps?”

Noctis’ stomach seemed to think that it did. 

The table was laden with trays; plates covered with shining domes did little to mask what food was about to be presented. Prompto withdrew the coverings without flourish save for his smile, a napkin protecting his hand from the heat. The first offering was a twofold platter of scrambled eggs and sausage still steaming as the dome was removed, the second was a stack of thin Tenebraean crepes Noctis vaguely remembered liking in his youth for the sweetness. An empty plate was presented to him, and Prompto moved to reveal toast and jams— the fruits and colours not something Noctis immediately recognized— before setting out coffee in the only set spot at the table. 

“What about you?”

Prompto shrugged, “It’s for you, Highness.”

The title seemed strange coming from someone his own age, and it curdled something in his stomach even as he piled eggs onto one of the empty plates that had been set. “There’s way too much for just me. And what were you going to do? Stare me down?”

“I, uh…” there was that nervous energy again, and Noctis pretended not to notice as Prompto seemed to take stock of the food and then the size of the Prince before him. “I think I’m supposed to just really serve it.”

“How about this,” Noctis settled in one of the chairs and made a face at the unfamiliarity of it. They were more like lounge chairs that forced him to balance on the edge if he was going to be close to the table; “you tell me what’s going on and where I am, and if you get peckish, you help yourself.”

Prompto seemed to consider that proposal a long few seconds before settling in the nearest chair as well. Like Noctis, he balanced himself forward— awkward and formal with one arm on the table to keep himself from slipping back to the low scoop of the leather chair— and at least accepted a mug of coffee. “Okay, I can do that.”

Over a shared breakfast, Noctis learnt the basics of his situation. 

He was in Zegnautus Keep and the city shining in the blinding winter light below was Gralea. He had been kept sedated— he could feel that in the haze that had cleared and the slowness of his own thoughts— when moved here under the pretence of receiving medical care after the attack at Cartanica. He learnt that— through a more comfortable smile and a mouthful of toast— the revelation that he was not an alpha had vexed the Imperial Court since the word had started to spread through the city and Niflheim empire. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen them so pissed off,” Prompto confessed, finally relaxing into the seat he had claimed opposite to Noctis.

“And they sent you to, what? Exactly? Babysit?”

“I think so.” Prompto offered a familiar helpless little smile in response. “It’s sort of law here; omegas are chaperoned by other omegas of proven virtue unless in the direct care of their family.”

“So what about you? Don’t you have a chaperon then?”

“I’m in my, ah, house, sort of. I don’t need one.”

“Your house…” Later, when actually thinking about it, Noctis would blame the restless sleep and chaos of the last few days for not realizing the mistake; “Wait. Are you Prompto Besithia?”

The fidgeting returned, only now in the form of nervous nibbling at the toast in his hands. Prompto nodded his confirmation rather than speak. 

“Shit,” Noctis breathed, “Sorry, I didn’t know.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you’re Nif nobility, right?” Noctis could practically hear Ignis’ exasperation at his inattention to lessons on diplomacy and hierarchy. He was certain that somewhere in the Citadel, Ignis was sensing the whole snafu he had probably just started. “Sorry, I should have realized.”

“No, no,” Prompto’s eyes widened as he realized what Noctis now meant and he sat forward again in the seat; “I’m nobody. I’m just an omega. You’re fine. I’m not like an heir or anything.”

Noctis paused at that, trying to make sense of the situation now laid before him. There were years of studies buried somewhere in his mind, he knew. Diplomacies he had never thought he would need, buried laws that would make his entrance on the world stage harder, according to his father’s Council, and details that needed to be managed. The information came floating to the surface like a fish being reeled in— some nonsense he remembered scoffing at when it was first presented to him and the details were dismissed in favour of more interesting pastimes like sneaking out to the city with Gladio or down to the kitchens with Ignis. 

“In Niflheim, omegas can’t inherit anything.”

The statement was something pulled from a textbook, he remembered. It had come up once when the peace terms were being negotiated and he remembered the Imperial emissary ignoring him completely when he wanted to ask questions about the terms. He had been in the meeting as a participant— ‘learning his role’ as Clarus had put it— not an observer. He remembered the sting of it now in hindsight. 

“Well,” Noctis said after a moment of thought, trying to pull up whatever memory he had of his diplomatic lessons. He really only remembered taking out the frustration in training with Nyx in the heat of the Kingsglaive yards, letting the Glaive coax him back to a good mood between fighting imagined enemies and making plans of ‘one day’ to visit Galahd together; “that’s bullshit.”

“What?”

“It’s bullshit. In Lucis, you’re my equal. I think. Or near enough.”

“We’re not in Lucis, Highness.”

“I just said we’re equal.” Noctis offered a smile and set his empty mug back on the table. “Call me Noctis.”

They spent the day in that room. 

Prompto refreshed what political information Noctis had forgotten, and Noctis asked for new information about the Keep and its inhabitants. Most questions were met with those helpless little shrugs and a smiled ‘it’s classified,’ but the basics were clear. Noctis was a prisoner but being presented as a guest (the Nif news channels confirmed that when Prompto showed him) of the Emperor. Statements from within the Keep were all confirmations that he was healthy and under observation, and his father was already aware and grateful for the hospitality that was extended. Noctis had a hard time believing that, but Prompto had at least been able to confirm that Lucis did issue a few formal statements. 

The most impartial news Prompto could deliver was the Altissian paper at lunch when he disappeared briefly. Over the meal, Prompto also provided a list of places he was allowed to go in the Keep— formalized with Nif letterhead and military acknowledgement— and presented a keycard and plastic bracelet that snapped around his wrist. 

“Library, observation rooms, guest lounge.” 

The list had been typed up neatly and notarized by some name Noctis couldn’t read. There was a map of the Keep on an attached page, with the three rooms the only ones not greyed out as “clearance required”. 

“And I’m here,” Prompto indicated a suite in the same hallway as the guest rooms he was confined to. “I can run and get stuff for you though.”

“What’s the excuse for this anyway? I can’t even get to see the Emperor?”

“You can ask for an audience,” was offered with a smile that Noctis was learning meant that asking was the most power either of them would have in the Keep for now. “But I’m pretty sure they’re going to keep you under lock and key for a while.”

“Great, I’m going to die of boredom.”

“And talking to Emperor Aldercapt wouldn’t be boring?”

“I could at least make some demands; call my dad, for example.”

“No you couldn’t,” Prompto folded the pages around the keycard and bracelet; “Omegas can’t make demands.”

“Fuck that.”

“That wasn’t very omega-like.”

Noctis paused in surprise as Prompto sputtered and blushed. “Did you really just say that?”

“Shut up, Highness.” But he was laughing with Noctis at that, the better part of the afternoon having at least put them on some equal footing at Noctis’ own insistence. 

By the time the sun had set over the snowy ridges that circled the city, Noctis at least was reassured that he wasn’t about to be dragged out and executed. The paper from Altissia Prompto had brought in confirmed that all of Eos knew where he was and who was to blame if something happened to him. There were blurbs on his role as Crown Prince and what he was doing making the Cartanica pilgrimage without his Shield— the show of good faith that had been extended for the peace— as well as the formally recognized roles of omegas in both countries. He had read those carefully, along with the statements issued by the Citadel— the carefully worded, guarded, and optimistic words that things were under investigation— and tried to work out just what he could do to get home safely. 

When Prompto left for the night, the city was gleaming with its own light far below. Noctis sat on the bed, settled back against the hard headboard and propped within the nest of blankets and pillows that he had woken up in. From his vantage point, he could see the distant streets with their constant flow of traffic— the streaks of trains moving throughout the city nearly endless as he watched the lights— but the people too distant to see much of anything. He wondered if Ignis had already tended to whatever leftovers were in his fridge back home, or if he’d come home to a sterile apartment thanks to Iggy’s need to clean things when stressed. To be productive. He already suspected that Gladio would be restless, maybe in the training rooms with Iggy while they beat their anger out on each other over the whole mess. 

He wondered if they felt guilty. 

He remembered the fight they had put up when told they would stay home. They were supposed to meet in Galdin three days ago, if the date in the Altissia paper and displayed prominently on the Nif news was right. He can’t imagine that they wouldn’t be plotting to lay siege to the Keep already once his location was confirmed. He wondered if orders were already given to confine them so there were no international incidents or insults traded with the Nif ambassador who had become a fixture in the Citadel since the peace was settled. 

He almost smiled at the idea that his friends would have to be held in the Citadel to keep them from storming Gralea below. He wondered who would be the voice of reason between them. 

The pillow he threw in his own frustration barely reached the end of the long bed. If he had his magic, he could at least feel connected to everyone back home.


	2. Chapter 2

Morning came with Prompto’s sunny disposition. Noctis had already been up and moving when the heavy door to the room opened with the mechanic echo of a little click and Prompto peeked in around the separation of the narrow antechamber and the room itself; it was so small an entryway that Noctis could see that the other man’s foot was wedged in the doorway to keep it open even while his head and shoulders were through the arch. The large tray used to move the domed breakfast dishes was carried by another person dressed in a stark white Nif uniform, the wyvern insignia a gash of red against their arm. It was the first new person Noctis had seen in the Keep so far and he could instantly see the difference in the way Prompto carried himself and what he wore. Where Prompto’s clothing was simple— more delicate and light— the actual staff uniforms resembled the heavy utility of what Noctis had come to expect from the Nifs. There was an almost military precision in the way the staff member carried and set down the tray; a straightforward method of ignoring the Prince poking through an open dresser drawer. 

Noctis had been searching for his own belongings; he had packed simply enough in the circumstances. The Cartanica pilgrimage was only meant to last a handful of days at most, and that was if he only went to the Tomb and back. But he had only found more of the same dull grey and white clothing that reminded him of slightly improved hospital wear. Or funeral attire if the suit in the closet was any indication. When breakfast was delivered, he had managed to find at least some trousers and a decent shirt that seemed free of any indication it was Imperial other than the colour. The clothing the day before had been left by the bed until he could confirm what piece of bland furniture was for laundry. 

When the staff left with an abrupt and precise about-face that was really quite impressive on the luxury of the carpet, Prompto offered a much more confident smile. He indicated the outfit Noctis had selected with an open hand and a look of distaste; “That’s really not your colour.”

“Don’t remind me, I’m going to look like a ghost if I ever leave this room.”

“I did already ask about your stuff,” Prompto set a newspaper down on the table with the food as Noctis started examining the offerings. “I was told that it would be looked into.”

“And what are the chances I get anything back?”

“Slim possibility?”

Noctis made a face at the idea of not seeing some things— a favourite shirt he had taken on a whim, some of his new gloves that had finally broken in enough to feel like a second skin, some of the lures collected at Galdin he had yet to set aside in the tackle box Ignis had always scolded him for binding to the Armiger— but resigned himself to months of just being grateful the Nifs had decided not to kill him on sight. He was certain his phone had been remotely wiped the moment the Citadel realized he wasn’t where he was supposed to be, and was likely laid out in pieces on some sterile workbench somewhere in that greyed off area of the Keep map still folded and left on a shelf by the entryway.

Still, there were some small things he regretted not binding to the Armiger or not leaving behind. 

The first plate of breakfast was revealed to be a savoury roll that smelt vaguely of sausage and yeast; a fresh bread that perfumed the air in the rush of released steam in the room. They shared the plate with a sweeter roll, one that he assumed was filled with the same sort of chocolate drizzled over it based on how heady the sweetness was hanging in the air around them. A second plate revealed a similar combination of tarts; Little Altissian egg tarts topped with a pale cheese, and the second a sweet confection of berries arranged in the little shell in an artistry Noctis did not expect from the Imperial sensibilities. He settled for the more familiar bitter coffee as he observed the offering. When he did reach for something, it was a piece of toast and one of the little pots of bright jam he assumed was a fruit base. 

“Why do they keep sending so much food?”

“They think omegas eat a lot,” Prompto responded, already opening up the newspaper to relevant articles about the ‘situation’ he was in the centre of. “You should see the amount of vending machines around here. I think they’re actually trying to figure out what you do eat. No one eats like this normally.”

There was a sense of comfort in Prompto having relaxed around him and at least candid enough to be nonthreatening. Noctis knew that he shouldn’t be comfortable— the other omega was likely reporting every conversation, every request, every whining complaint back to some officer or higher in the Nif food chain— but it was difficult to not be relieved by the familiarity of just a conversation. Of something normal.

“What do you usually eat?”

“Not this.”

Noctis pushed the tray toward Prompto in response with a smile; “Dig in.” 

He tested one of the savoury rolls with their fresh and puffy pastry that was deceptively heavy in his hand. Tearing into it, the filling was revealed to be a spiced meat— still hot and dark against the golden dough— that reminded him of the street vendors he had seen in Cartanica, offering round rolls filled with a bland ground meat. He read the headlines as Prompto searched the paper for new statements to report to him, new details or developments; one page seemed dedicated to counting the days he had been away from Lucis already. 

“So, how long are they planning on keeping me?” 

Prompto raised his head to answer, a chocolate bun that had already smeared its filling in his hand at the first bite halfway to his mouth. 

“Until,” Noctis was on his feet before the word had ended; his hand closed around the knife he had used to spread the colourful jam across the dry toast earlier. He was turned to the newcomer, shoulders squared, head high, and nearly dropped everything at the sight of Ravus; “your benevolent hosts figure out what to do with you.” 

He recognized Ravus instantly— there was never any forgetting the boy who had once shared tarts with him and Lunafreya in the open fields of the Oracle’s Sylleblossoms, rolling his eyes at childish games but graciously accepting the flower crowns woven from the iconic flowers of Tenebrae— in the alpha that had arrived seemingly silently in the little sanctuary Noctis had decided already was his in the foreign land. There was no forgetting that smug confidence the man had carried even at sixteen, though there was no trace of the summer warmth of their childhood in the cold eyes looking him over. Assessing him, until they came to rest on the way Noctis still held the butter knife. 

“Prompto, you may go.” It was cold and clipped, an order muted in the comfortable guest rooms of the Keep as Prompto’s nervous hand wringing returned. The blond had stood at the same time— snapped to a sort of informal attention Noctis had never seen before, eyes on the alpha, body turned toward the guest, hands clasped in a way that suggested he was more used to holding something when in this sort of position— and Noctis was vaguely impressed by his speed. 

“No,” Noctis countered, and any movement Prompto might have considered making was stopped though he looked confused, conflicted; “stay. Ravus, what the hell are you doing here?”

“As diplomatic as ever, I see,” Ravus dismissed the threat of being outnumbered in the space and stepped closer. His hands were visible, but he walked like a military officer— like Drautos, or Cor, Noctis thought as he saw the straight back and easy steps; the ownership in his stride— and Noctis was suddenly very aware of the rapier at Ravus’ side, of his steps muted by the carpet, and his own lack of defence beyond his value as a prisoner and the butter knife in his hand. Ravus walked like an alpha in charge of something important, and Noctis knew that was likely the larger threat than just the sword. “I need a moment with you, Prince Noctis.”

“Thought omegas were supposed to be chaperoned.” He had managed entitled idiots before. But they were usually businessmen and minor nobility trying to coax his favour in the same way they would flatter and try to charm their own rivals. 

And none of them had been armed.

Prompto had already stepped back to a safe distance, hands wringing together as he seemed to be torn between awe at Noctis’ own different body language and training on how to deal with someone like Ravus. Noctis supposed there were conflicting orders now— obey the man decorated like a military commander, or the previous standing order to stay with the captive— that he would need to evaluate later. For now, his attention was on Ravus, who had now stopped within reach of the table. There was a more familiar look in Ravus’ eyes, an exasperation that had been an affectionate brotherly annoyance when they were young and on the same side of a war. He still remembered trailing after the alpha everywhere in Tenebrae when Luna was in her lessons, the way the older boy could have easily left him lost in the white wood halls of Fenestala Manor with his wheelchair, and the way Ravus had always offered a rueful smile and an exasperated huff as he took hold of the chair to bring Noctis with him.

Now Ravus carried a stern mask, one hand on the hilt of his sword as they sized each other up. Two adults no longer explicitly on the same side of a war that had been supposed to be finished. Now Ravus wore the uniform of his captors, and carried the marks of their leaders on a prosthetic arm Noctis had never gotten around to asking about when they were in the same room during peace talks. 

“High Commander—” Prompto started, voice soft in the room but loud enough to break the tense stalemate between them.

Ravus turned to address Prompto and Noctis took his opening.

He moved the way he had trained with Ignis— gain height and momentum first, destabilize the immediate threat to gain the upper hand— and the brief thought that Ravus and Ignis shared an almost similar build at a glance crossed his mind. Prompto’s empty chair toppled as Noctis used it to gain both the height he needed to get the advantage he wanted and the momentum to keep it long enough to push Ravus into a more vulnerable position. Ravus slammed hard against the wall by the entryway, Noctis’ hand gripped his against the hilt of the rapier to keep the sword in place and sheathed, useless for the moment. Traces of the strange jam Noctis had sampled smeared against Ravus’ pristine white collar with the flat of the knife pressed against his throat— it was an empty threat, they both knew. But it was a threat, and for the moment, Noctis was locked on top. 

“Rav-”

The name had barely started before Noctis felt the boot on his leg. He twisted, but too late and the pain from his side that had been reduced to a dull ache with rest and quiet flared up with enough force to send him toppling to the carpet with the movement. He fell back and rolled to his injured side to protect it from those heavy boots if Ravus thought to bring them down on him. The flash of steel was blinding in the morning light, and Noctis stilled as the very real threat was suspended over him. Even if it wasn’t matched in the glare he was given over the thin blade now between them. 

“High Commander!” Prompto was there in an instant, hand on Ravus’ arm to separate them. To break the moment of open challenge between them. All without being an active participant in the danger, ready to move out of the way, ready to retreat despite the strength of his current grip against Ravus’ uniform coat. “Lord Ravus, stop.”

Noctis let himself smirk at the withering look Ravus gave the blond and instantly regretted trying to get up. “Shit.”

“You did always forget when you were pushing yourself,” Ravus muttered as the sword was sheathed and he stepped back to a less threatening distance. Whatever challenge had been issued dissipated in the sweet smell of still warm bread and savoury morsels of sausage. “Can you get up?”

“Fuck you.”

“Clever,” Ravus moved anyway to right the chair that Noctis had used to gain the advantage. “So it’s true that your magic is gone.”

Whatever cold shard of dread that had been slowly growing in his belly at the thought when he first realized the lost connection to the Crystal grew and sharpened. Noctis knew he hadn’t kept the look of fear from his eyes— the shock, the realization that it was a planned and implemented strategy to limit him was confirmed— as Ravus briefly softened and turned to let Prompto get Noctis back on his feet. The alpha busied himself with glancing through the Altissian paper on the table, offering a glib; “Or I’d assume one of your ridiculous Lucian weapons would be embedded in my back right now.”

“You’re just jealous you have to use that stick.”

“Careful, boy,” the blatant insult spat in warning between them; “you are in my care at the moment.”

“Your ‘care’?” Noctis scoffed, and groaned as he fell back into the chair he had been in before. Prompto disappeared into the hallway with a wary glance to Ravus, and returned within seconds with a small bottle of over the counter curatives in hand. Noctis made a face and almost wanted to refuse them. 

“Sorry,” Prompto muttered, “forgot to say.”

“How do you forget to tell me that Ravus Fucking Nox Fucking Fleuret is my captor?”

“I’m sure your father would love to know about the language you use when under stress,” Ravus said, closing and folding the newspaper; “I may need to include it in my report.”

“I’m sure dad will understand the stress,” Noctis groaned, heavy and plaintive in the bright morning of the room and his unexpected visitor. “Fine, what do you want, Ravus?”

“For your charming companion to leave us in peace for a few minutes while I explain your situation to you in greater detail.”

“Why can’t Prompto stay?”

“Because I don’t want him to,” was the only answer Noctis thought he was going to get. At Prompto’s conflicted look— that curious battle Noctis wasn’t sure suggested any actual loyalties— Noctis nodded his acceptance of the terms.

He sat up again in the chair, pain dulling from the burning flare to irritatingly tolerable drug-numbed embers. “See you in a few, Prompto.”

Prompto hesitated at the dismissal, but nodded his understanding and left quietly. Noctis smiled as the blond grabbed a sweet tart on his way, ducking around behind Ravus to steal the breakfast treat before disappearing out to the hallway beyond the comfortable confines of the bedroom. Still Ravus waited a few moments longer as Noctis lingered in impatient silence before he turned to face the chair and approach properly. 

Something had shifted in that simple movement. In the silence of the room between them and Noctis sat up straighter as he saw Ravus’ shoulders slump and his features softened. The patient yet exasperated young Prince of Tenebrae Noctis remembered surfaced beneath the stern features; the military decorum and posture was shed for the more familiar strength of an innate noble bearing and Ravus knelt to examine the extent of the injury to Noctis’ side. 

“How bad is it?”

“It’s fine,” Noctis waved him away, biting back the discomfort at drawing himself up to a more dignified position in the low seat that had seemed to be the only one offered to guests. “What’s going on?”

The sigh Ravus released was like a final release of some dam of stress finally breaking to flood him with a resigned sort of relief that Noctis realized he had not expected. He wondered if he had always been this stupid, or if the stress of this strange situation had finally just took his toll. For a moment, Ravus seemed like the young man he had once known in Tenebrae; “You never told them, did you?”

“No.” Ravus responded, admitting defeat in trying to asses the damage to Noctis’ ribs but satisfied that the Prince of Lucis wasn’t going to suddenly die on his watch. Before the alpha had stepped into the room, Noctis hadn’t questioned how the Nifs might have known he was an omega. He recalled the forests of Tenebrae burning and the safety that floated to the blazing grounds and fields with the ash. The Fleuret family had been their closest allies, he remembered. They had known everything. He wondered now why the truth of the situation had never come to light in the expanse of the Empire’s many conquests before the peace talks. 

“And they never asked you?”

“They did,” Ravus admitted, “eventually. When it came to light with your capture.”

“You’re still in one piece,” Noctis observed as Ravus stooped to pick the knife from the carpet and toss it back to the cooling tray of breakfast offerings. 

More or less, Noctis thought, still wondering what had led to the prosthetic that seemed modelled after the missing arm. At a glance, it could have easily been a piece of armour. 

“I bought time to think,” Ravus admitted. “For now, you are under my care.”

“How exactly did that happen, anyway?”

“I can be convincing when needed, Caelum. This development will buy you some measure of safety and freedom withing the Keep.” That was an interesting prospect. The tantalizing call of the greyed out portion of the map of the Keep seemed less of a barrier now. Ravus seemed to sense his thoughts and retrieved the folded pages from the shelf where Noctis had left them. He examined the keycard and bracelet, the string of numbers that would act as a key to the many locks outside of that one door. “I’ll have this updated. It will still be limited.”

“How limited?”

“We’ll start with the gardens.”

“You’re an ass.”

“And you threatened me with a knife.”


	3. Chapter 3

Noctis was disgusted to realize that he had settled into a routine over the course of two weeks without news from Lucis or the Nifs about his fate. Mornings were spent digging through an overabundance of white, greys, and muted colours, while carefully watching as staff and other set routines changed. Most were betas— men and women in stiff uniforms that suggested the luxury of the Keep was more akin to a military base than a palace— who ignored him entirely as they replenished laundry and toiletries despite his polite smiles and ‘good mornings’. They lacked the apparent humanity of the Citadel guards and staff he was more accustomed to— the ones who would offer him shy smiles if they weren’t comfortable enough to talk to him directly— but he also supposed that they were under strict orders; he had no idea what they would have been told about him. Breakfast with Prompto was at 8:00am sharp, and usually a mix of simple dishes that seemed like a universal attempt at breakfast fare based on the Nifs culinary colonialism that sapped all flavour and interest from the conquered dishes, to more not-quite-right offerings of something from Altissia or Tenebrae. And the rest of day was left open. 

The idle time was the worst of it, even with Prompto’s company. There were newspapers and broadcasts, and Noctis’ own usual requests to speak with someone within the Imperial court. 

Lunch was simple, dinner more elaborate and clearly the fare of Niflheim’s elite if the blandness was anything to go by. He was offered meats and vegetables that had been leeched of all flavour; Iggy’s voice and criticisms ringing in his head about how the only the soulless machine of the MTs could think the plate set on the tables were suitable enough to be called food. 

The time in between was spent wandering the same little stretch of halls he had access too, pestering the now long-suffering officer in charge of the MT guards with benign requests for his things or an audience with the Emperor, or learning about the alien culture he was being subjected to. He spent what seemed like hours looking out over the seemingly empty city so far below and often shrouded by snowy clouds. He watched the steady and predictable lines of trains and the change of lights as the city woke or prepared to sleep, with the news a long droning repetition of propaganda in the background. 

The only real reprieve from the monotony of the day was when Ravus came to snipe with him over lunch or a brief scolding to behave himself. Or when Prompto managed to sneak him just a little bit further into the greyed areas of the map that were meant to be barred to him. Often with the result of MTs pinning them to the walls to scan their wrists before escorting them back to the same dull stretch of halls they had just escaped from. A visit from Ravus was guaranteed soon after— like a parent being called down to a teacher’s office to collect and errant child.

He liked to think that Gladio would be proud of him for seeking out some sort of amusement in the library.

When he first tested his keycard pass to the library he was confused by the grey room that greeted him. There was a drop box and an automated directory, then a set of elevators. Each elevator was equipped with a scanner similar to the doors in the long stretches of quiet and sterile hallways. Noctis had scanned his bracelet as Prompto instructed and only two of the possible six buttons indicating levels to the archives lit up. At Prompto’s helpless shrug, Noctis selected the only option available to him that was not labelled as the “lobby” and hoped there was at least something useful in what he had assumed was going to be seemingly endless rows of books. 

Instead, the silver doors opened to another sterile entryway, dominated by a single desk and a bored looking staff member perched behind it. The rest of the larger room was locked behind a barred barrier, but Noctis could see the opulent carpets and lounge seating beyond the military checkpoint. 

“ID please,” the woman said, monotone and bored and not even glancing up from the monitor before her. Prompto lifted his wrist and Noctis did the same. The scanner the woman held pinged its agreement to their access and the barrier unlocked with a resounding click. “Thank you, enjoy your time.”

The rows of books were fairly extensive once he was able to look into them, but the reading was light. Newspapers, magazines, outdated textbooks from around Eos seemed to be the bulk of informative literature. The rest were the fictions and historical non-fiction. Rows of serial dramas and standalone depictions of fantasy realms Noctis recognized from Gladio’s own library; historical fantasy and fiction mingled with biographies leading into historical analysis of the state of Eos. It was little more than a collection of easy reading and light amusement with a wider variety of topics to cover the basics of the real world beyond the Keep, and Noctis supposed the real draw of the place was meant to be the open lounge and sequestered desks nestled between stacks of quiet shelves. 

It reminded him less of the expansive and all encompassing archives of the Citadel and more the old library in the well-to-do high school he attended. 

Three days into a week of boredom and he had decided on a favourite area of the library and had managed at least two of the three catalogued books in his accessibility on the etiquette of the Niflheim Empire through to M.E. 751. He studied the customs that seemed alien to his own training— levels of bows, how to address officials he may never meet, the correct order for the use of forks at a banquet— and decided that the great and progressive Empire of Niflheim was at least three or four decades behind the rest of Eos.

“You never struck me as the type capable of reading,” Ravus snide drawl broke the silence on day three of studying just how he was supposed to act around the High Commander. 

“Funny, Rav.” Noctis lifted the book so the man could see the title. “Or should I address you as ‘your Imperial Lord High Commander Fleuret’?”

A look of disgust crossed Ravus’ face; “Only in the company of the Emperor, if you must.”

Noctis closed the book in favour of better amusements through Ravus. He had settled in a small lounge corner that kept him out of sight of the personnel at the entryway, where the long stretches of plush couches were lined with stiff and thin pillows meant to offer some sort of comfort. The light from the large windows washed the already muted red and orange colours of the library furniture with the greys of the blizzards beating the sides of the Keep, and the hum of the heating system could have put him to sleep if he let it. It had been what the book of _Etiquette of Omegas in Public and Private Spaces_ a “settled nook” meant for comfort and withdrawing from a hectic world. Noctis had assumed it was a place to make dying of boredom slightly more bearable. At least from the apparent standpoint of whatever alpha idiot designed the Keep. 

“Please tell me,” Noctis tossed the book onto his small pile of borrowed material for the day; “that you’re here with an execution order to finally end my misery.”

“Stop being dramatic.”

Ravus joined him, taking a seat across the little low table that centred the lounge area. He seemed stiff and unnatural in his white uniform with its purple accents— the crest of Tenebrae in place of the scarlet wyverns of the Empire on his shoulder— and Noctis had to smile at the ridiculous look of the man. He sat with a stiff and straight back, fully uniformed as if on some duty rather than in the halls of the place— Noctis assumed— was meant to be his home as well. It almost reminded him of Nyx on duty in the Citadel when he was under the more unforgiving eyes of the Council and the public, and unable to do more than offer a smile and a wink as Noctis passed him in the halls. 

A stack of notepads was set on the table, similar to the ones Noctis had been using to attempt to take notes for his studies of the Empire that had quickly devolved into doodles across the stark white pages. Only these notepads seemed to be more ornate— a thicker paper, unlined, not the empty Imperial white but a softer colour with some decoration in the corners— and the pen offered with them more ornate than the ballpoint charmed from the librarian as he convinced her of his studious nature. 

“What’s this?”

“I have managed to get you permission to write to your friends and family;” Noctis was sure there was some ordeal involved in getting this tiny concession granted. Some argument made to the Emperor that cutting the Crown Prince of Lucis off from the world entirely would be detrimental to whatever plans they had. “And I will ensure their delivery.”

“Just how redacted?”

“I will read them before having them sent, no one else.”

“Really?”

“Perhaps the Chancellor,” Ravus admitted after a moment; “He prefers to have his eyes over everyone’s shoulders where possible. So do try to keep that in mind when plotting your escape plans.”

“You think I’m capable of plotting an escape?”

“No, but it bears a warning in the event that you are stupid enough to forget your current circumstances.”

Noctis looked over the new stacks of paper, already thinking of who he would write to— his father, obviously. He could write to Iggy and feed information about the Keep to his adviser. He could write to Gladio about the militarism he can see from the empty halls and wide windows. And Nyx… He wanted to write to the Glaive to let him know that he was fine, he was healthy. He wanted to hear Nyx’s confident reassurances. Or at least read them.

“Would I get responses?”

“If they write back, yes.” Ravus offers a nod, his confidence in the answer a bolster to Noctis’ resolve. “I’ll deliver them myself.”

“After you read them.”

“After I read them.”

Noctis flipped through the paper in consideration. It was nothing in the styles that he would have selected, and he knew his family would see that. But it was blank, and free from any overt images of the Empire. It was a compromise he understood— a moment of freedom with no direct tie to the Nifs, but a sacrifice of privacy— and he suspected that Ravus had been navigating these murky diplomatic waters for far longer. After all, the alpha High Commander was a walking compromise between Nif and Tenebrae— the white uniform and respect of a Nif ranked position, the freedom to include and honour elements of his own culture. So long as he did the dirty work that came with it. Noctis wondered what he would be expected to do in exchange.

“Thanks,” he offered, hoping it didn’t sound flat or forced as he added the stacks of pads to his already marred notes.

Ravus nodded and stood again, the moment of curious intimacy broken by the long white coat of the uniform; “Come with me to lunch.”

“You mean in my room.”

“No, I mean in one of the guest dining halls.”

“There are guest dining halls?” But Noctis stood, papers gathered up in a pile with the pens. It was a quick walk to his rooms to deliver the supplies to one of the abundant shelves set about the room. Noctis had noticed there was no desk early, but hadn’t considered it until he was already back out to the hallways and under the passive watch of the MTs and soldiers skulking the pristine corridors. 

Zegnautus Keep, Noctis was learning, was not always so sterile. 

There were hints of treasures and colours from around Eos in every corner left open to him for exploration. In the library, he had started off with old maps and information pieces of the Keep— saw the old pictures of ornate hallways with their rich decorations— before it was stripped to the bones as it was now. Or at least, as his little corner of it had been. Once Ravus opened the way to another section— cold glare at the officer who had given him a look over and looked about ready to protest— Noctis saw the world open up again before him. 

The sterile halls were carpeted with rich colours, the white walls adorned with paintings, portraits, and trophies from around the world. Doors were labelled with the names of distant stretches of shores and deep forests— regions replicated in their guest rooms— and Noctis nearly tripped over himself in his curiosity. 

“What?” Ravus demanded as they stopped for the fifth time in as many minutes, Noctis studying the ornate detailing on one door labelled   
_Tenebrae_. “What could you possibly—” 

The door wouldn’t open for him, but Noctis didn’t need it to. Across from the metal door with its inlaid imprint of a grand Tenebrean Oak was a painting. It was nearly Noctis’ height and set in a simple frame of carved white wood. Fenestala Manor loomed over the trees like the mountain it rose from, was embedded in. The spires and peaks of the Fleuret home shared its shape with the Crystal housed in Lucis, and seemed just as magical even in indistinct oils spread across an old canvas. The trees were in motion— caught in a frozen moment of a spring breeze— and Noctis could practically smell the forest air heavy with the perfume of blooming Sylleblossoms. He remembered the same sights from his childhood, the white walls shaped from sturdy and ancient oaks, with the dappled sunlight moving between the dancing boughs.

“It’s just a painting.”

Ravus’ hand on his arm was less than gentle as he was pulled back into the trek through the halls to what Ravus had called a guest dining hall. The wealth and splendour of the Keep on open display at every corner— replacing the MTs and guards, Noctis thought— as they moved. There were no other guests to see Noctis gawking, at least. But he stopped several more times; Galahdian beads were strung up in an elaborate installation of netting, Cavaugh leather armours of behemoth hide set standing like a statue in one corner, trinkets from places Noctis had never even heard of lined the halls and settled into dusty crevices by the wide windows that illuminated the treasures. 

“So my room is sort of like a prison.”

“No,” Ravus led him through the wide doors at the end of a decorated corridor. The rooms opened like a restaurant, an unmanned podium at the door a hint at the sort of controls that may have once been needed. A corner of the room was a dedicated lounge— a quiet bar backed with a mosaic of colourful bottles, long sofas and rich woven rugs over the carpets— but the rest seemed almost like a bistro. The sort of little place he had seen in images of Altissia, with iron tables cast into intricate patterns and golden light flowing from decorative chandeliers despite the cold winter sunlight streaming in from the windows. “You’re is modelled after what they understand of the Crown City.”

Noctis considered the bare walls and spartan decor in his rooms. They had reminded him of the impartial hotels littered across the core of Insomnia, but he had thought that a universal trait of all hotels. The sterile halls and empty corridors. “So, nothing.”

“Exactly.”

The moment they sat, a small army of staff seemed to appear. Ravus was at the centre of it all— omega servers nodded their attentiveness as he requested a special for them both, a beta appeared at the lounge bar with a flurry of activity— and Noctis almost laughed at the look of utter disdain at the attention. A chorus of “yes, High Commander” echoed in the room as the small militia of staff scattered with their orders, and left them in relative privacy for a moment or two. Or as much as they could have given the open nature of the room and the now constant movement of the staff prowling the peripherals like a pack of rabid voretooth staving off boredom. 

Noctis leaned forward on the surprisingly sturdy bistro style table with a smirk, chin rested on his palm as he watched the look of discomfort barely start to fade from Ravus’ face. 

“Don’t,” Ravus said, steeling himself into the fearsome persona Noctis was more familiar with in the public spaces of the Keep. 

“Wasn’t going to.”

“Then stop smirking like an idiot, boy.”

“I’ve just haven’t seen you flustered in years.”

The look of utter steel was enough to doubt his bringing up their shared past. He glanced around at the staff who seemed very interested in idle duties of cleaning and checking on the decorations as the air started to fill with the smell of whatever Ravus had ordered for them. Ravus followed his glance and straightened in his seat— the airs were clear, it was a false bravado for the unintended audience. “I was hardly flustered. And you acted like a gawking idiot just walking down the hallway.”

Noctis almost missed the pointed look that led him to a revelation. Ravus was planning something, that much at least was clear. He thought of the books of etiquette, the insistence of Ravus claiming responsibility for him. Of the now curious eyes barely hidden by the mundane tasks of sorting napkins or collecting cutlery. Noctis straightened, sort of, in his seat. He leaned back and let his shoulders relax— small, open, all the things those books had described him as in their archaic expectations— and mirrored the body language of the omegas on staff in small ways. “Not my fault they never let me out to see things around here.”

“Then I’ll have to start taking you for walks,” the challenge in the term was clear, but Ravus’ smirk was practically there to bait him; “like a pet.”

Noctis scoffed, all pretence at the act dropped; “Call me your pet again and I might need to take that sword off you.”

Drinks were delivered by a smiling beta woman who had pursed her lips at the exchange. Noctis could see the surprise in her eyes as she set the distinctly sweet and colourful drinks before them. From somewhere back by the bar, there was a stifled giggle and Noctis resisted the urge to look. 

Ravus, however, did nothing to stop his glare at the challenge; “You can certainly try, _pet_.”


	4. Chapter 4

Rumours seeped from the snowy heart of Gralea like the bad weather. It started with little reports carried by the network of spies still in operation in the capital and outskirts, in the ports and coast towns newly opened to a tentative trade with Lucis. It had started in single drips and drops of information; a waitress in Gralea heard from her sister in the Keep that Noctis had arrived and was being kept in the comfortable guest quarters. A delivery driver who managed a shipment of stock heard from a clerk in the medical wing of the Keep that there were efforts to find out what the Prince would respond to. 

Then came the first of the unverified rivers of information.

Noctis was under the protection of the Tenebrean Prince and High Commander of the Nif Military. Noctis had been seen hosting Ravus in his rooms over lunch, at the library before a shared meal, at the little guest dining halls where all residential and guest quarters converged on a shared lounge. Noctis had been nearly inseparable from an omega of rank within the Imperial Court. 

By the time the letters arrived in the Citadel, sealed and bound together with a Lucian black ribbon, the trickle of rumours had become a deluge splashed across every news outlet trying to maintain a neutral position on the strange situation of Noctis’ presence in the Imperial capital. The news and official stories had outpaced the rumours— outlets in Tenebrae reported their Prince’s chivalry and speculated that he was acting on his sister and Queen’s request to protect their childhood friend, while Altissia seemed to speculate of a growing romance between the two within the confines of the monstrous Zegnautus Keep— until even the careful network of spies laid throughout the Empire weren’t sure what was real and what was conjured up with the stories. 

One thing was certain, when the letters had arrived with the Niflheim messenger usually delivering reports and orders to the ambassador housed in accommodations near the Citadel, King Regis of Lucis had hoped for some sort of concrete proof that his son and heir was still free from harm and Imperial influence. 

Clarus had taken the small pile of letters— four in total, all noted with names in Noctis’ careful script— and broke the seals within view of the Council and Throne. The head of Lucian security spared them a cursory silent review before offering them up to the King. 

Regis retired to his study with the treasure of his son’s words clutched in shaking hands. The letter addressed to himself pulled from the envelope before he even left the elevator. The heavy paper was the sort of quality he would expect— clear enough to be printed as it was, without necessarily needing to be transcribed for publication— and folded in thirds so Noctis’ name was revealed first as he unfolded the letter. 

_Your faithful son, Noctis Lucis Caelum_

He had smiled at that careful writing. At the familiar professional hand that appeared on Citadel notes and documents, and nothing like the scrawl of hasty notes or absent smudges of his name run together. There was no trace of the familiar lazy hand in the letter before him. This was fit for publication. 

And it would be in short order. Spread across every paper and tabloid in the kingdom. In Eos most likely. With a formal statement of gratitude and friendship to preserve the fragile and new peace that had been forged only a handful of years ago when the stalemate had grown too strenuous for either of them to maintain their positions. 

Aldercapt had always been considered a wise and just ruler in Nifleheim and its stolen lands. Regis had always considered himself a man of compromise when presented with terms of peace. 

It said as much in the letter now spread out on his desk, the sylleblossom seal weighing down the nearby envelope to attest to the confirmation that Ravus Nox Fleuret had taken charge of Noctis’ safety— as per, if Regis remembered correctly, Imperial custom in the absence of the Crown Prince’s true protectors. He doubted that Noctis had been let within twenty feet of the Emperor just yet. 

The knock on his study door carried a familiar note and pace, and Regis smiled at the thought that Ignis had managed to wait this long after hearing of the delivery. He had seen the young man in the gallery of the Great Hall with his small army of aides and interns necessary to attend to the Prince’s political and professional needs— now floundering, he supposed, as they were redirected to new avenues within the Citadel. 

Ignis entered at his acknowledgement and bowed low; “Majesty, there were letters from Noctis?”

“To the point, as always, Ignis,” Regis offered a smile and offered the envelope bearing Ignis’ name from the pile. “There is one for Gladiolus as well, if you don’t mind delivering it when he returns with Cor?”

“Of course,” quick eyes looked over the remaining letter addressed to a member of the Kingsglaive Regis had seen stony faced and tense since the news of Noctis’ disappearance broke. “And the letter for Sir Ulric?”

Cor and Gladio had both been as restless as Ignis in the Citadel for the month they realized Noctis was not coming home as scheduled. Ignis had remained in the Citadel permanently since, sleeping in the guard rooms with the Glaives on duty, or in his study. But Regis recalled seeing him speaking to Ulric in the halls, the clenched fists and hushed harsh words. Both had snapped to attention when they realized he was there, but he had his own thoughts on the matter. 

“I will request he come for it.” There was a moment of hesitation Regis had only seen in Ignis when the boy was caught in the midst of trouble or a secret. It had been years since he saw that familiar fidget and calculating look. That look that meant the young alpha’s self-preservation instincts had been switched on in protection of Noctis’ interests. “Unless you believe there is something private in that letter?”

They both knew Noctis better than that. They both knew that he wasn’t careless with his words or expressions, and that the letter— no matter how benign it would read— addressed to a member of the Kingsglaive the Nifs may now be scrambling to assess would speak volumes louder than any sudden and public declaration. But Ignis’ discretion when it came to his friend had been unchallenged for years, just as his loyalty to the crown. 

“No, Majesty,” Ignis answered; “I’m sure Sir Ulric will be happy to have it from you.”

“His privacy is safe, Ignis, I assure you.”

Ignis was dismissed with a nod, and Regis watched him opening his own letter before the study door had even closed on him. 

They had all been on edge for the past month— treading water with reminders of the delicate peace that still passed between the Citadel and Zegnautus Keep. The Council had floated ideas of declarations and demands, heard briefings from the suddenly anxious ambassador who looked like he expected to be thrown to a pack of rabid beasts when summoned. And now, there was finally an avenue of communication opened. Even if heavily monitored. It was a start. 

Regis reached for the letter addressed to the Glaive with some curiosity. The man had been under watch in his assignment to the Citadel. Drautos had been at hand to ‘keep the peace’ as he described it as Glaives were hastily shuffled around the city in the chaos. Some moved to administrative tasks, others kept under the Captain’s direct command. Regis hadn’t questioned it until he saw that name across the otherwise unmarked envelope. He turned it over in his hands, seeing the deep blue seal with the feathery sylleblossom imprint lifted by Clarus in his examination. It was unremarkable. 

The paper folded and identical. And the words unremarkable. Polite, eager. Regis knew his son’s tones, but his captors did not. These were the words of friends and sparring partners. Of a shared life not extending beyond the intimacies shared with Ignis, or Gladio. He suspected those letters to be more familial than this. 

But the look of fear in Nyx’s eyes as he stepped through the study door told him all he needed to know about the nature buried deep in the letter. “Sir Ulric.”

The Glaive bowed— clipped, military, precise; “Majesty, I was told—”

“Ignis does work fast,” Regis mused as he refolded the letter and held it to the Glaive. “Forgive a father’s curiosity.”

Nyx took the letter and held it close, much like Ignis had, “Thank you, Majesty.”

“How long, exactly, have you been my son’s mate?”

“Sir, I—” The look of abject horror at the blunt question, the slowness to deny it or react. And then the steel resolve of the soldier he could feel snap into place; “The better part of a year, Majesty.”

“Any plans to tell me this?”

And there was that confident smile Regis had come to expect from the Glaive. The little shrug that no one but a man who had mastered his own powers would have offered as he seemed to forget the divide between them. He remembered, vaguely, the society of Galahd and is intricacies; he would need to look up just what Noctis was getting himself into with this one. 

“In Galahd, it’s really up to the omega to decide who knows and when.”

“Ah, so the blame is squarely on my son?”

Any Lucian would have stuttered an apology and backtracked. Regis smiled at the helpless look the Glaive offered in response; “Not big on trying to control omegas or princes where I’m from.”

“No, I suspect not.” Regis sat back at his desk and considered the Glaive a moment— Noctis could have done worst, he supposed— before dismissing the soldier with a gesture; “Please let me know if you notice anything in that letter.”

“Yes, Majesty.”

Regis considered the formal letter before him, sent with the expectation of publication in every newspaper in Eos, and wondered just how much the Empire realized that they may be underestimating Noctis.


	5. Chapter 5

For as long as Ravus could remember, the Emperor had never held a conventional Court. He had gathered his advisers and supplicants, his leaders and delegates to him around his seat of power— pressed together into the Grand Hall and the enclosed throne room while the heart of the Keep beat around them. For the most part, Ravus had grown used to it; pressed shoulder to shoulder during the more important meetings that required every branch of the government to be present. These had been war councils for as long as he could recall being involved in them. They had been discussions of how to out manoeuvre the Lucian enemy or maintain control of the annexed lands still resistant to come under a more enlightened rule. 

He found it odd how often Galahd ended up the topic of discussion. 

“The so-called ‘Hero of the Kingsglaive’,” the Emperor’s knuckles were white where he gripped the armrests of his throne; “you’re sure of this?”

“Without a doubt, your Radiance,” the Chancellor said, the dramatic fluctuations of his voice apparently intended to calm the Emperor’s ire at the news. “However, reports have always been unclear on the matter and manner of the young Prince’s role with the Kingsglaive, or their role as anything but protectors.”

“And the contents of the letters?”

“Benign, I assure you,” Ardyn offered; “reassurances and friendship. Exactly what one would expect of a nobleman to a favoured guard.”

“One with a history of decimating the shock troops sent to the front lines,” Ravus offered. He had read the letters as much as Ardyn, pored over the words exchanged from the replies delivered to the Crown Prince of Lucis this morning by way of the omega companion supplied by Besithia’s own house. When eyes turned to him for speaking up, Ravus met the Imperial gaze with a steady and cold responding one of his own. “But I have no concerns about the information shared. Out of all correspondence, Ulric was the only unexpected response.”

“And which letter did our guest reach for first?” The Emperor mused. Ravus resisted the urge to roll his eyes— the man had always believed himself some sort of expert in the minds of an omega— but couldn’t quite hold back the clench of his jaw in the pointless direction of conversation. “If the boy is already courting—”

Only Ardyn had ever managed to successfully interrupt the Emperor’s thoughts without consequence. “Then we will just need to turn his gaze elsewhere, your Radiance.”

“What do you suggest, Chancellor. Have you finally come with a new plan to bring that wretched kingdom to heel?”

“Indeed,” Ardyn said; “However there are some details that may require more attention than others. Such as the very laws of succession within Lucis and Niflheim.”

“How do you mean?”

All eyes had turned to the Chancellor and Ardyn seemed to revel in the undivided attention. His movements were fluid, exaggerated, and benign displays of an arrogance Ravus knew to be a mask for the true cunning of the man. But the Chancellor approached the throne as if no other members of the Emperor’s Council was present. “The Lucian people determine their succession by the Crystal and bloodline, your Radiance. And while we would require— by our own superior laws driven by years of wise traditions based on fact and science— the consent of King Regis to give Prince Noctis to one of your many formidable loyal noble houses, the Lucians only require a child that has apparently been accepted by the Crystal that serves as the source of their power. I’m sure the acceptance of the King will also go a long way, but the kingdom may be divided if the Crystal accepts any heir presented to it in their arcane and archaic rituals.”

“You suggest we bow to their superstitions?”

“I suggest we foster the boy, your Radiance, as rituals can be discarded over time. The Lucians have no concept of the natural order, and may be divided by those who do. If Prince Noctis produces a child, blood dictates that it would be the heir to Lucis in time. With or without the consent of King Regis, and with or without their ritual presentation to the Crystal.”

The Emperor nodded his understanding, and Ravus felt his stomach turn at the prospects; “And whomever controls that child…”

“Which would be us, naturally,” Ardyn confirmed; “Raised here in your glorious Keep, or the house of a loyal sire. And in their eventual ascension to the Lucian throne, loyal and beloved by your Empire.”

“Except,” Ravus interjected, hand rested on his rapier; “that the Lucians don’t care who ascends the throne, as you said. They have a history of omega rulers, and Prince Noctis would become King Noctis before any of this plan could come to pass.”

“Unless the boy is worn down and made agreeable to Imperial rule.” Aldercapt considered; “The right guiding hand of a mate would see to that; either through kindness or dominance, whatever best works for the boy to bow to reason. And there are many Imperial Houses who could volunteer an alpha heir.”

“Tummelt, comes to mind,” Ardyn mused. 

Ravus barely managed to bite back the laugh at the absurdity of the entire plan; “The boy would eat the Tummelt heir alive.”

Or at the very least, Ravus suspected, put the young Brigadier into the medical wing often enough to drive the idiot out of the capital with his little toy exo-suits.

“And I suppose you have a better idea, Lord High Commander?” the title dripped from Ardyn’s mouth like a mockery of the suffering it took for Ravus to gain it. 

Ravus felt the alternative— the plan barely formed— slip from him before he could delay it. “The Prince was promised to me when we were young. King Regis and my Queen Mother had started the deal between Tenebrae and Lucis before Fenestala came under your rule, your Grace. I need to only claim the right to that old deal.”

“And you only mention this now?”

“It wasn’t a confirmed match. It was irrelevant.”

“And now?”

Ardyn smiled, sweeping ahead as if he had just laid claim to this plan himself; “And now it’s a perfect solution. There is no question of Lord Nox Fleuret’s loyalty, your Radiance; and no question to the friendship harboured between Tenebrae and Lucis that King Regis himself would likely wish to cultivate again. Consent from the boy’s royal father is all but assured, and will go a long way in appeasing your own people’s higher values.”

Ravus felt a modicum of ease seep into his posture at the agreement. He could forge the appropriate documents later— the promises that would have been needed had such a deal really been brokered between his mother and Noctis’ father. At the worst, he could delay the need for them by offering them early; “I will request the documents and notes of promise from my sister, to present to whomever would cast doubt on the match.” 

“Speaking of your sister,” Ardyn rounded on him; “I do believe she would be required to finalize any sort of deal on this matter?”

“No need to bother her,” Ravus said; “Tenebrae has adopted Niflheim rule and laws; my sister is the Oracle, not the sovereign. I will see to the details as the alpha heir to House Fleuret.”

The nod of approval was all he needed from the Emperor on that point. The matter would be broached again, he knew. In a few days, in a few weeks. Progress on the dealings would need to be made apparent— consent from the King of Lucis, the possible presentation to the Crystal, the blessing of the Oracle to bolster support across Eos…

As the throne room emptied of its audience, Ravus made to follow. The footsteps of the retreating nobility thundered against the mechanical hum of the Keep’s heart. But the rise of voices was more thunderous as the gossip took root as Ravus hoped it would. His claim would be public knowledge before nightfall, and any idiot who had hoped for the previous plan Ardyn had only just formed would be turned away. 

The hard part, Ravus thought as he moved easily through the gathered nobility who had returned to ignoring him, would be convincing Noctis of the plan. Particularly if his suspicions about the Galahdian Kingsglaive who had written Noctis a response turned out to be true. The letter had been like the others received from the Prince’s friends— trite and comforting. Words of encouragement and promises that Lucis would persevere had started to blur together when he had read them before handing them off to the chipper blond omega who had become Noctis’ constant companion. The only things that had stood out between the letters were the requests for information on food in one and the list of recommended books in another. When it came to the Galahdian’s letter, Ravus hadn’t found anything about it that stood out save for unremarkable and rudimentary doodle of stars in the margin. He suspected there was a code in there somewhere, but he hardly thought a poorly drawn constellation counted. 

His feet brought him to the Lucian guest wing before he had realized where he was going.

He hesitated in the sterile hallway before the guest room door. He was confident in his plan, he decided. He had saved the boy from being matched with a Nif house who wouldn’t tolerate him as he was, or who would try to shape and subjugate him, and therefore Lucis, by force. Ravus knew he had saved Noctis from a worse fate as a perpetual prisoner and worse within the Empire. 

He only needed to convince Noctis of that fact. 

“Leave,” Ravus ordered as soon as the door was opened and the presence of the blond was apparent. He did not need this discussion being reported back to those who would encourage Ardyn’s meddling. He didn’t need the audience to the pleading he suspected he would soon be doing to get Noctis to just see reason.

“Hello to you too,” Noctis muttered from his awkward seat by the table. But he nodded to Prompto— either a sign that the order was acceptable, or that whatever they had been doing had reached a natural conclusion. 

Ravus assumed the latter as Prompto took one of the letters delivered earlier and smiled; “I’ll be back in an hour? Two? I’ll find those books for you.”

Stepping aside to let Prompto pass, Ravus waited until the door was firmly closed before he addressed the look of amused confusion that Noctis greeted him with. The remaining letters were set aside and Noctis leaned back in the low seat that had really not been designed for sustained comfort when trying to work at the table. “Well?”

“I need your assurance that you will support the plan I am about to present to you.”

“What plan?” 

Ravus considered demanding the promise of support first, instead he turned his attention to the windows overlooking the capital city below. News would likely already been seeping from the Keep like blood, flooding the city with rumours as the audience members were overhead by staff as they left the throne room. As they retired from the Keep to manage their own plans to navigate the situation at hand. 

“Rav, what plan?”

The nickname had always irked him. When they were young and Noctis was trailing after his shadow in the grand corridors of Fenestala Manor, Ravus had sworn he told the boy to use his full name more than a hundred times. It had only worked in short periods, before the young Prince of Lucis had the shortened name echoing through the halls again. It would be easy enough to convince him the story was true if he had the mind to; their childhood had been full of locked doors and meetings they were not told of. He could wait until he had forged the promissory notes and terms of a betrothal. He could use the trauma of Noctis’ childhood memories in his favour. 

“We are betrothed.”

“What?!” He rounded on Noctis when he heard the seat move. He moved to catch the Prince before any attack or aggression could be started. He held the Prince down in the seat, pinned his arms to the rests and leaned forward until they were nose-to-nose. Outside, the city would be caught up in the drama of the story, he knew that from experience. No doubt Prompto himself was already hearing the story from some servant or guard willing to share the gossip. Noctis, however, was glaring at him. “What the hell do you mean we’re betrothed?”

“Calm down and listen to me,” he kept his voice even, his pressure on Noctis’ wrists even. He felt the shift in weight before it could lead to any escape and interrupted it with a more forceful press to hold Noctis still. He slipped his leg forward to give himself better balance and prevent Noctis from gaining his own. He continued only when Noctis relaxed back into the seat, accepting his defeat; “They intended to give you to an Imperial House to keep as a mate for an heir.”

“They?”

“The Chancellor, the Emperor, the Court. Pick one. You were to be handed over to whichever one wanted to try their hand at dominating you and bringing you under Imperial loyalty.” He expected the scoff, the sneer that idea elicited from the Prince. “And they would have won, sooner or later, Noctis. Either by keeping you prisoner or turning you into what they wanted.”

“They could try.”

“They won’t have the chance now. But I need you to play along.”

He saw the Prince thinking it through, reaching the conclusion Ravus had come to to save him. “So you said were were betrothed and now you need me to act it.”

“I need you to play along with the idea that you might possibly want to save your life and kingdom.”

Noctis took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Long moments ticked by in the few seconds it took for Noctis to nod his understanding. Carefully, Ravus released his hold and straightened. Noctis stayed as he was, as if still pinned; “What do I need to do?”

That was the part Ravus wasn’t certain on. He knew the gossip was loosed out to Eos already, starting with the frozen Imperial Capital. He knew what it was to navigate the whims and adorations of the Imperial people; to fill the roles they presented as available to him. His sister was the kind Oracle, not his sovereign Queen to them. He was the alpha heir to House Fleuret, the rightful ruler of Tenebrae in the eyes of the Niflheim people no matter how many centuries his home thrived under the rule of an Oracle Queen, of which he was neither. Lucis was the superstitious kingdom of magic and strange traditions, where natural roles were perverted until omegas could inherit a throne. 

“You’re not going to like this,” Ravus started, knowing full well that to win the support of the people for this plan to gain enough support to remain unchallenged, Noctis would need to be what they expect to see; “but you will need to gain the support of the Niflheim citizens. Even the Chancellor won’t dare harm you or take you away from my protection if it challenges what the people want to see.”

“And just what do they want to see?”

“An omega and an alpha in love, I imagine. I believe the dramas term it ‘friends to lovers’. And these people love their dramas.”

“So you don’t know,” Noctis finally stood from his seat, rubbing his wrists where Ravus had pinned him; “But I get it. Fulfil their expectations. What’s the endgame? How does this get me home?”

“I’m working on that.”

“So you don’t know.”

“Noctis—”

“Fine, fine. I get it. Step one, make the people like me. Step two?”

Ravus heaved a sigh, realizing just how bad an idea this actually was. Any hint of Noctis being himself or showing a distaste for Niflheim might unravel the whole plot that he needed to build around them like armour. “We will focus on step one. Start with trying to be more… Not like you.”

“Love you too, _betrothed_.”


	6. Chapter 6

By the end of the month, Noctis had started to forget the regular requests to speak with the Emperor directly. He had focused on leaning exactly what the citizens of Niflheim expected of him, narrowing down behaviours and mannerisms that he could adopt without it seeming too forced. Prompto sat with him in the library, going through the etiquette described, listening to the anecdotes Prompto could conjure up with the slightest suggestion of a faux pas that may slip through— reactions from alphas was one thing to navigate, Noctis now had a foreign media as well as his own more familiar media to manage. And he suspected that any public appearance would be reported well enough to have half of Lucis picking apart his every gesture. 

Managing expectations through Ravus was another matter entirely. The Tenebraean alpha had little personal interest in Noctis’ own ingrained habits, but it was his manners that were the focus. “They would expect someone of your status to be delicate,” Ravus would say before showing him how he would be expected to do the most menial task. 

So when the summons came at the end of the month, Noctis had been caught off guard and in the middle of writing a letter to Gladio. The guard had knocked twice— firm and foreboding before stepping into the room with little other announcement— startling Prompto off the perch he had taken at the edge of Noctis’ nest of a bed where he had been half obscured to give Noctis some presentation of privacy in his writing. There had been an awkward moment as Noctis looked up from the letter where he had been detailing his thoughts on one of the characters’ plights in the books Gladio had recommended, and the only sound in the room (save for the constant mechanical hum of the Keep) was Prompto picking up the encyclopedia of _Natural Behaviours, Inclinations, and Morals of Omegas_ from where he dropped it. 

As he was marched down an unfamiliar hallway, with Prompto trailing behind like an afterthought to the guards, Noctis thought the whole day had become surreal. The corridor reminded him of the offices back in the Citadel— bland and professional and sterile in an entirely different manner- but periodically emblazoned with the Nif banners and colours as if anyone working in the Keep would be capable of forgetting the country they were in. Or serving. 

Despite the small retinue of armed guards around him, when Prompto was ordered to stay in the opulent waiting rooms overlooking a view of the city Noctis had yet to see, he felt very alone as he was brought to a tall, dark door decorated with the entwined wyvern inlay in some crimson epoxy. 

“Ah, Prince Noctis of Lucis,” he was greeted instantly by the man who rose from behind the long dark desk littered with small stacks of documents all stamped with the word ‘Classified’ in big red letters across the top. “I do apologize for the delay in speaking with you directly, but I was assured that Lord Ravus had your every whim seen to and you know how work can just pile up when not attended to.”

Noctis bowed his head in a greeting, wracking his brain for the name of the man before him. He missed Ignis’ constant presence in these sorts of political matters. “Thank you for your concern, Chancellor.”

“Please,” the Chancellor offered a deeper bow in return— a Lucian acknowledgement— with a dramatic sweep of his arm until the gesture rested on the empty seats opposite him at the desk; “no need to be so formal. Ardyn will do, your Highness. Please, sit.”

Noctis did so, eyes drifting over the stacks of marked pages and suspecting that they were for show; “You asked to see me, Chancellor.”

“Again, Ardyn, if you don’t mind the kindness. But yes, I did want to see how you had settled, how you were feeling, if there was anything further in my power to grant you.”

“When can I go home?”

“To the point,” Ardyn settled in his own seat and Noctis had a strange sense of deja vu— of being sat across from a similar desk and scrutinized when in school as a headmaster tried to determine if his presence would be too much of a distraction to the other students— that seemed to strike far harder than he had ever expected; “The confidence of kings, I suppose. Tell me, your Highness, how are your injuries?”

“I’m fine,” though Noctis knew that might be hard to determine when he hadn’t seen a doctor since waking up in that guest room. “Fit for travel.”

“And what if I were to doubt that assessment?”

“Then call a doctor to clear it.”

“Of course, a reasonable request.” A leather bound book was pulled from beneath a pile of papers; “such an appointment would need to be scheduled and witnessed by a reputable alpha.”

“Ravus will oblige. I’m sure.”

“As am I, dear Prince, as am I,” Ardyn flipped through the pages without looking at his guest; “however, the only doctor with the reputation to attend to an omega of your standing is currently retained in a scientific endeavour in the Ulwaat region. He is due back from his engagement in three months’ time. But I suspect by then that you’ll be fit as a proverbial fiddle and off again.”

Noctis knew a stall tactic when he saw one. He knew when any reasonable request— or reasonable enough— would be thrown back with some political pandering behind it. He had experienced this same tactic from the envoy who had bartered the peace treaty that Niflheim could still claim was not being violated so long as they made the offer to help him. He took a deep breath and levelled a cool look at the Chancellor smiling before him. 

“Tell me, Chancellor, you receive all of the reports before the Emperor, right?”

“Of course, my dear boy. An adviser is to be informed of all possible complications.”

“Then why is it such a surprise that I’m an omega? Every Niflheim officer and ambassador to visit Lucis for longer than an hour would know. So please, where was the weak link in this information?”

The pleasant smile remained, like a mask. “So full of questions, my dear boy. Perhaps they forgot to report it.”

“Then they aren’t fit to represent Niflheim in Lucis if they are withholding information.”

“Ah, too true, too true. But you seem to think that there’s something else?”

Noctis crossed his arms, knowing that any accusation would be something he couldn’t back away from. He chose his words carefully; “I suppose it wasn’t relevant information at the time.”

“Very possible. And I assure you, the news was not as unexpected as you presume.” The Chancellor tented his hands before him on the desk, leaning forward as if sharing a secret; “Ravus, for instance, had always known. He was quick to make his claim, after all. And apparently you were promised to him as part of a bargain between your kingdoms.”

The language was meant to annoy him— the suggestion that he had no agency in the matter, that he had no freedom to say no if it was true— and Noctis offered a pleasant and practised smile in response. “I don’t think it went far enough to confirm that. But I was eight at the time, so my memory of the whole thing is hazy.”

“Pity, I would have liked to know the truth of it.” Ardyn stood in a single movement, unfolding himself from the chair and turning it aside as he stepped away. In three long steps, he had rounded the desk and was lifting Noctis’ chin in his hand; “And what, dear boy, do you want that’s within my power to give you.”

Noctis forced himself not to flinch away, not to rise from his seat off balance or jerk away from the touch. He knew he could ask for anything— better access in the Keep, different rooms, fewer guards at his doors or trailing in his shadow— but everything he wanted would be anticipated. Even demanding to go home would be expected. 

“My room is cold,” he offered up instead, just to see the Chancellor’s surprise; “I’m not used to the weather, so some heat, or blankets, better clothes, whatever, would be nice until I’m used to it.”

The man stepped back and Noctis released the breath he had been holding, “I’ll see what I can do, your Highness.”

Unlike Ardyn’s more fluid movement, Noctis felt his chair move as he stood from it. It caught on the carpet as he straightened and stood almost nose to nose with the larger man who refused to move back out of his personal space. “If that’s all?”

“Of course, Highness. Permit me to walk you to your rooms.”

Another sweeping gesture and something turned in Noctis’ stomach at the suggestion. Every instinct told him not to turn his back on this man, but the only way to get to the door at this point would be to present his back and move in the tight space created by the intimidation tactic and the awkward chairs. Noctis moved quickly to keep the sensation of being exposed to its minimum. “That’s not necessary.”

“If you insis—”

“I do,” it came out with more force than intended. Had he been at home, Ignis and Clarus would have both frowned at the response. Here, Noctis only wondered what sort of implication it would have now. “I have Prompto.”

“Yes, the Besithia boy. I do hope he’s been an agreeable companion.”

“He’s fine,” Noctis made for the door, still feeling the man’s presence behind him. It wasn’t until he was out in the quiet halls with Prompto, taking the long way through the labyrinthine route of the Keep to his own quarters that he realized how unsettled he was by the Chancellor. 

“He always gives me the creeps,” Prompto admitted when in the safety of the more familiar and undecorated halls. 

They had stopped at one of the little corner lounges open to the rest of the halls. The windows jutted outward on the angle, to give a more scenic view of the grey clouds passing in wisps over the dull city below. The loveseat and padded stools meant for a momentary comfort did little to make the spot more appealing than the privacy of the nearby guest rooms. But the vending machines rattled as snacks were dispensed and Prompto punched in more numbers to add to the growing hoard of junk food for the day.

“Do you know anything about him?”

“Not really,” Prompto stooped to collect his prize, handing some over to Noctis before turning his attentions to the drinks. “He’s been around for as long as I remember.”

“Really? Like that?”

“Yeah, like that.”

Noctis realized with a vague sense of annoyance that he couldn’t tell if the Chancellor was an alpha or not. He presumed beta as best, but he supposed that was really the least of his concerns. All information meant for the Emperor went through the Chancellor first. And he didn’t trust that man in any capacity, let alone to ensure the right information got to where it needed to be. Cans of drinks were piled into his arms as Prompto grew his little treasure mound of treats and they started back on their path to his rooms. 

“Hey, Prompto?”

“Yeah?”

“You did remember that they feed us here, right?”

When they got into the rooms, there were extra blankets piled on the shelves near the bed and the room was noticeably warmer while still comfortable. Noctis almost laughed as he dropped the snacks onto the table for sorting; at least his requests might be honoured. 

Deep in the bowels of the Keep, the machinery that had been installed still hummed in time with the rest of the Keep’s heartbeat. It was a comforting noise, if Ardyn had to admit it. There was a certainty to the noise that had seemed to settle itself right in the heart of all who heard it— a gentle purr of power that was easy to let fade into the background. 

“Well?” The Emperor asked, barely turning from his admiration of the machines in response to Ardyn’s heavy steps on the metallic floors. Much like the Lucian throne was the seat of power in the Citadel— nestled as it was in a Grand Hall that raised the King above all attending subjects and let his voice boom in the clever designs of the room— the Emperor’s seat was nestled deep in the Keep among the very veins and organs that kept the marvel of ancient engineering well above the common rabble. 

“The boy is anxious to go home, your Radiance,” Ardyn reported as he stilled well within reach of the living machinery. “Which is to be expected. Barely subdued yet, but I trust a few weeks longer with our own Lord High Commander will have the boy docile and meek.”

“You don’t really believe that.”

“No, I don’t. It will take a firm hand.”

“A pity we cannot simply give him to you.”

Ardyn offered an indulgent smile at the concept; “As flattering as that is, your Grace, I don’t believe we would be a very good match in the eyes of the boy’s father. And that pesky idea of a blessing is what we need to foster the peaceful conclusion to this whole situation. As discussed.”

“Yes, yes.” The Emperor touched the machine, pulling a reading up on one of the many screens released by a gentle touch to a barely seen latch; “And his magic.”

“Under control, as expected. I did tell you this would be more than enough to carve that weapon out of his arsenal. And the amplifiers are in position now around Gralea, simply waiting for your order to be activated.”

There had been talk already of letting the Prince out to the city under careful supervision. Plans and discussions on how to manage the boy without a constant guard on him— to provide him an illusion of freedom so that he might relax into their own machinations more. Like a wild animal being tamed, it was a gentle sort of breaking they needed to attempt first. The re-purposed Wall Breaker technology now anchored through the Keep had at least started to level the field; amplified as it was meant to be across the city, all magic tied to the Lucian Crystal would be nullified within the dormant ancient caldera that housed the Niflheim capital.


	7. Chapter 7

Until Noctis’ disappearance, the orders and letters coming in a steady weekly stream to the emissary housed within the Citadel had almost gone unnoticed. They had been intercepted, of course, and the documents read before delivery, but Ignis had never felt the need to glare at the little clock on his tablet as he waited impatiently for the customary review of the mail and interrogation of the delivery officer to be finished. He had never felt the need to be involved at all before now; before Noctis had been taken while out on what should have been a harmless diplomatic pilgrimage to the tomb of a Lucian King of Yore. 

But here he was, standing in the halls outside of the Shield’s personal study, trying not to acknowledge the equally impatient Glaive stationed outside the door. He barely acknowledged Nyx standing on duty opposite him in the hallway, refusing to fully meet the Glaive’s eyes as they waited for the same thing. At least not in front of the uniformed Nif guard who had already been cleared and was waiting for the doors to open and his superior to be released so they could leave once more. The white of the uniforms, Ignis thought, seemed garish in the solemn halls of the Citadel. The polished stone almost too warm and solid for the delicate snow white of the Nif standard. The natural light streaming in from the long line of arched windows in one wall gleamed off the polished stone and gilded accents of refined Lucian history and mirrored back the dehumanizing mail and masks even the Nif officers were expected to wear. 

The Citadel— with its Guards and Glaives, shadows and stone— was poised to come down on the unwelcome guests like a war hammer if so much as a hint of information led them to believe the Crown Prince might be harmed. 

Ignis squared his shoulders with the knowledge that the Glaive— equally impatient and equally critical of the sweating officer now examining the uniform mask and helmet in his gloved hands— would watch his back in the event that war hammer did need to be dropped. 

When the study door opened, it was without any foreboding creak or announcing rumble of the ancient doors scraping against the stone floor. The two Guards under the Shield’s command escorted the rattled officer out into the hallways before the second Nif was collected. Clarus offered them assurance that they would be on their way after a final checkpoint and escorted out of the city. For a moment, Ignis thought Clarus had managed to make himself larger— less Gladio’s kindly father with his familiar grin and the laugh Ignis remembered filling entire rooms— and colder, a true Shield for the Lucian Kingdom. 

The image instantly reverted when the Nifs were little more than echoes of their boots in the quiet halls. 

“Any—”

“Noctis is fine,” Clarus offered a smile as he interrupted the question he knew was coming. “Their reports match ours, though Cor’s spies seem more adamant in using the term ‘bored’.”

Before Noctis’ disappearance, these little checks had been completed by some officer of the Guard and reviewed later. The Nifs had been sequestered in the lower levels of the Citadel with the administration and guard rooms, where they could be watched and recorded and the debriefings filed away for later. The folders and parcels they carried would go through basic checks and skimmed by eyes familiar with the exact parameters of the emissary’s role in the Citadel, then delivered within the hour. 

Now, the Shield of the King broke the seals himself and reviewed the information being delivered to the emissary housed by Lucian hospitality. Debriefings were recorded, but conducted by Clarus directly, conversationally yet in a manner that Clarus allowed his fearsome reputation to assist the flow of details. 

Ignis had reviewed each interview personally, collecting every scrap of information that he could and hoping to find it useful. He had spoken at length with Clarus and Cor about the information they had, and delved through all the archives for the references made to Zegnautus Keep itself. Each letter, he hoped, would carry some new detail or tidbit that he could work with.

A thin bundle of folded paper was offered and Ignis took the letters, barely glancing at the names scribbled on the envelopes before nodding his thanks; “I’ll bring Gladio his.”

“Good, I don’t know what you’re working on but he’ll appreciate seeing Noctis’ writing.” Clarus turned to the Glaive, offering a third envelope; “Yours, Sir Ulric. I hope you know what you’re doing.”

The Glaive offered an almost lopsided grin in response, “Making it up as I go, Sir.”

“I’ll look into what I can do for that Leave you want,” Clarus said, holding up the final letter as an excuse to make his way back to his King’s side.

Ignis paused to consider Nyx as the Glaive prepared to leave; “Ulric, if I may, can I bother you for your letter as well?”

He had found the strange messages encoded in his own— the details of sunrise and temperatures, the view from windows and descriptions of the day— and compared them to the information Gladio received coded in shared discussion of a book they both knew Noctis would never have chosen for his own entertainment. But he had failed to consider what messages might be offered to Nyx. 

The look he received told him why; the letter was already open in the Glaive’s hands, and the apprehension obvious. Ignis knew that they had valued discretion for the last two years. He had watched Noctis’ reactions and affection for the alpha, he knew (better than most) the depth of that connection. “I’m sorry, I’m just… Noctis has been sending us coded messages, and I’d like to see if he has any included in yours. Perhaps they can be connected and help in some way.”

The hesitation was understandable, Ignis thought. The letter had only just been received. It was something Nyx had been waiting for. At a glance, Ignis could see the glimpse of familiar doodles in margins of the letter in Nyx’s hands. Too far to make out the lines and images, Ignis resisted the urge to rush to view them, to analyze them, to insist that they be added to his project in deciphering Noctis’ little coded messages. But Nyx had already refolded the paper in the few seconds of hesitation and tucked the letter into a pocket on the breath of his decorated uniform coat; the decoration of silver chain chiming against a button as it moved and resonating through the now-quiet hall. 

He expected the apologetic smile Nyx offered. “Give me a day to look it over.”

It wasn’t an unreasonable excuse, but Ignis bit back the disappointment with a polite nod and headed for his study. 

Settled in hours later, he had three letters spread out across the maps of Zegnautus Keep the Marshal had loaned him, scouring and cross-referencing every corner and turn and known window. Gladio had taken up residence in his comfortable armchairs, legs propped up on one as he flipped through the terrible novel Noctis had chosen for their clandestine codes. 

“Want me to talk to Ulric?” Gladio rumbled from his sear, pages turning casually as he searched the novel for the plot pieces Noctis was referencing; “He’s usually pretty good with me.”

“That’s because you all but shoved Noctis in his direction.”

“You didn’t have to watch the pining, Specs.”

“I beg to differ,” Ignis looked up from the marks he was making on a page of thin tracing paper over the map and blue prints, pen poised above a corridor that had been presumed an unused residential wing; “Noct sat exactly as you are nearly every day for a week lamenting Ulric’s idiocy when they started their affair.”

The amused snort was joined with the soft rustle of another page being turned. “Sounds about right. Still, think he’d have anything?”

“There were sketches—”

“Sketches? Noct doesn’t draw.”

“Doodles then, if you must. In the margins from what I could see.” A cross reference was drawn on a digital map Ignis had stored on his tablet for a quick guide, stylus replacing pen with a quick movement. “They may have worked out a code of their own.”

“Or it’s just doodles and Nyx doesn’t want to share them.” Gladio marked a line in the book and set the letter aside on Ignis’ desk as he settled to read; “I need to tell him to start just putting in the page numbers he wants me to look at.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

“Not like they’d redact a page number.”

“You never know,” Ignis straightened and looked at his handiwork; “I do believe I’ve worked out exactly where they’re holding Noct in that monstrosity of a palace.”

Gladio glanced over at the lines and makeshift blueprints, the notes along the edges of the tracing sheet like a legend and compass, debating the exact views the captive Prince might be seeing from his windows. At a first glance, the Keep had been an imposing, impenetrable maze of lines and corridors marked out in the multiple pages of blueprints. Images taken from the city streets and skyscraper rooftops had been enlarged and pinned to Ignis’ walls over a map of Eos itself; but Gladio could still barely make heads or tails of the whole mess of it. The diamond structure balanced precariously on its tall base, had been a mystery of engineering Gladio had little interest in. But there was something appealing about seeing Ignis’ deconstruction of the place— the lines laid the fortress bare on the paper— and the little circles for his theories and assumptions. 

“Know how to get him out yet?”

“Not exactly, but knowing where he is will help, I’m sure.” Ignis looked down at his work— at the presumption that the unused hallway in the plans and described by the Keep staff was the same— and set about a more permanent marking for the possible prison. “It’s still valuable information.”

Gladio sighed and returned his attention to the book in his hands; “Well, this whole story he’s got going is a trapped princess forced into a loveless marriage, so I don’t know.”

“I understand a betrothal to Prince Ravus of Tenebrae is to be announced formally,” Ignis mused. “I’m not sure which of them would feel more trapped in the circumstances.”

“You ever met Ravus?”

“Once or twice, I believe. He seemed…”

“Like a dick.”

“Uptight, was my impression. They can hardly force Noctis into a marriage, though. Not with Nif laws.”

Gladio marked a passage in the book and skipped ahead to a third of the way through. “Don’t be so sure, Specs.”

“They can hardly change their laws to allow what you are implying.” Ignis frowned at the thought, mind already buzzing with the implications of an unwilling match. For one, Lucis wouldn’t stand for it. “Niflheim law states that the omega’s guardian must give their blessing to any union. King Regis wouldn’t—”

“Book says the marriage goes through,” Gladio held up the section as if in proof of his statement. “And out of all of the Nifs, you think King Regis would deny the Oracle’s brother given the other choices?”

“Then what do you suggest?”

“I’m working on it.” The words on the page offered insult to injury in Gladio’s eyes; he had failed to protect his Prince, failed to recover Noctis when investigating what had happened, and now, by all accounts, would fail to rescue the Lucian Crown Prince from a fate they both knew was worse than death. “I’ll think of something.”

Ignis sighed, and returned to the letters. Spreading them out with the copies he had made to mark up and analyze, he covered the small victory of narrowing down the location of their stolen Prince with the hints of the real task set before them. “I’m sure you will.”

It was hours before the little knock came at the door. They had nearly missed it for the bickering as the day wore on and their will to tug at the same threads of a puzzle started to wane. The confines of the study— the narrow office really meant more for a minor administrative position rather than a formal member of any royal Council— had started to constrict them. Curtains had been drawn against the harsh afternoon sun reflecting against the stone walls, the small fridge kept for refreshments beneath one bookcase had been emptied of its drinks and caffeine, and the constant low thrum of modern climate control reverberated between their ears like a constant drum. The blueprints of the Keep had been rolled up and moved to a safer corner, the letter now spread across the desk between them, Gladio and Ignis nearly nose-to-nose as they argued over the seemingly arbitrary redactions they were trying to fill in. 

Nyx Ulric opening the door without permission was the distraction they had been waiting for. The Glaive held two letters in his hand like an offering, but his eyes hardened when Ignis went to take them. “I’m getting these back. As they are.”

“I’ll make copies for our needs, Ulric.”

Ignis immediately did as promised with the letters in his hands while Nyx watched, leaning against the heavy door and no longer dressed in uniform from the hours before. Gladio saw the Glaive’s eyes wander over the mess, the copies and pages, the images of the Keep pinned over the map of Eos. The Shield straightened as if he hadn’t just been arguing with Ignis over the finer details of a bad romance novel that Noctis could have been referring to and squared his shoulders to meet Nyx’s gaze as it reached him.

“You here to help, Ulric?”

“I’m not good with that,” Nyx made a gesture to encompass the mess; “but you need help with the code in mine.”

“The doodles?” Ignis offered the original letters back, already making notes on the first of the copies. “I’m sure we can manage. They look like constellations.”

“They are,” Nyx agreed.

“Then I’m sure—”

“You know anything about bedtime stories in Galahd, Scientia?”

“I…” Ignis paused, looking up from what he had just circled; “beg your pardon?”

Gladio leaned in to Ignis, looking at the marks in the margins of the letters; dots and stars, some coloured, some left open and blank. They looked like absent doodling stemming from boredom. Like the margins of the pages Noctis used to slip between pages of some book he had taken an interest in. “These are stories?”

“Sort of.” The familiar confidence they had known Nyx for returned, and the Glaive ignored the offer of a seat as he turned one of Ignis’ copies over— his own letters safely tucked away in the pocket of his civilian jeans— and took Ignis’ pen from his hand. Each doodle was recreated in a series of dots and circles on the page, names and seasons scrawled next to each pattern; “I told these to Noct. Carbuncle, Siren, Phoenix, Cerberus, Chocobo, and Quezacotl.”

“They correspond to seasons and directions, if I understand,” Ignis said, looking back toward the images of the Keep. “But is he just identifying where he is being held? We’ve solved that.”

“The pattern breaks,” Gladio pointed out a few random marks, arrows and lines placed along creases where the paper may have been folded. “Do they mean anything to you?”

“It’s a bead pattern, I have someone working on it.”

“And how would Noct know about a bead pattern?” Gladio lifted the letter to read through it properly, noticing far fewer redactions than the others as Noctis mentioned other books in the library he was allowed to access and the art described as on display— stolen from the annexed territories like trophies. “Smart kid.”

“All the time in the world and a bored Noct,” Ignis smiled, noticing the same titles and names in the letter. “These books should be easy enough to find.”

“The art won’t be,” Nyx pulled out his phone instead, “Not the exact one Noctis is looking at. But any shop in Galahd will have some sort of replica. This is the one hanging on a buddies’ wall at his place. Closest match I could find to the original the Nifs took from Galahd.”

The net had been draped in a crescent in the photo, a wide stretch weighed down by glass beads and tethered glass floats. In the image, the light from a window caught the glass and sent shadows of etchings across the wall— arrows and stars, simplified images Ignis would have assumed are for luck given the origin in a fishing net. “Noct is showing you what etching are on the beads he sees?”

“Exactly.”

“How does that even help?” Gladio compared the information in the letter to the list Nyx had made on a copy; “Is it a map? A story?”

Nyx smiled, “It’s whatever we need it to be, depending on the order we can get it in.”

The Glaive took the letters from their hands and laid them down on the desk, side by side, tracing one mark to the next. “Here, Chocobo is in line with this arrow mark. Chocobo is East in the constellations, the arrow marks are technically fish— see the tail?— and are a counter.”

“Three, East… Directions?” Ignis considered his own solutions and snapped his fingers as the thought struck; “Movements. Three patrols in the East, it matches the reports of activity in the Keep.”

Nyx nodded, “He’s telling us his guards and their schedules. The wavey lines are actual waves— rough waters— and Siren is down.”

“Points of no access,” Gladio took a deep breath and nodded; “When exactly did he learn this stuff?”

One look at Nyx’s smirk and Gladio decided he would rather not know the answer to that question. He found the match to some of the patterns in Nyx’s tattoos. 

Ignis reclaimed his seat at the desk and set to transcribing the directions and marks in the same manner Nyx had shown him; “Noct did earn top of his class…”

Gladio took his seat, the book discarded in favour of this new breakthrough. “So the net is a key for this code. And you can send the same sort of thing back to him?”

Nyx nodded, “Already started on the key to use. What have you got?”

“Gladio,” Ignis started, not looking up from his new task of finding the combinations; “receives the story— the reports of his well-being and the plans the Nifs are making for him. I have been receiving his location and co-ordinates, some details of his day-to-day whereabouts in the Keep. And you seem to have the tactical information that may otherwise be redacted from our collection.”

Nyx nodded his understanding before tucking his phone away; “I’ll dig up the books he has access to and let the Marshal in on the code. Leave the key to me.”


	8. Chapter 8

“So, just what do you wear to one of these things?”

“You’re going to hate it,” Prompto was grinning as he let the garment bag in his arms unfold to its full height. He set the loop of the protruding hanger on a peg by the already overfull closet of clothes Noctis had suddenly seemed gifted with between trips to the library or wandering the halls of the Keep. Articles of clothing not relegated to the draws of pants and easy wear shirts had been accumulating in the room’s closet in his absences to the point where it was starting to be a joke between them that clothing just multiplied when ignored. “And I mean like totally loathe it.”

“Good to know,” Noctis muttered as he unzipped the bag. It was a suit. An Altissian cut suit, rather than a Nif style, but still bearing the stark white of his Imperial host. By far it wasn’t the worst he had seen— Nif suits were structured and designed to add weight to the shoulders, while this had a more fitted look despite the fact he had never stood for any tailor in the city— but he already knew it was going to make him look like a ghost despite the contrast of his dark hair. The only salvation to the thing was that the accents were an almost wine colour rather than the bleeding red that definitely would have made him look like some daemon to scare Lucian children. 

He paused as he looked it over, pursed his lips, and zipped the garment bag back up. “I hate it.”

“Told you. That’s not even the worst part.”

“How does it get worse?”

Prompto, his only friend in the whole of Zegnautus Keep, could barely contain the traitorous grin as he opened the closet to select something from the mysterious depths of Nif fashion that had been supplied to him. Another garment bag, translucent and barely hiding the article of clothing carefully prepared by what Noctis assumed was malicious Nif tailors at the order of a sneering Chancellor. The shirt was silk, at least, but the same accent colour as the buttons of the suit— that off putting red of a wine that Noctis thought was barely suited for a painting of the drink he so desperately needed— but cut low and different to what he was used to. It dipped to a delicate V that seemed to follow the cut of the suit jacket from what Noctis had glimpsed in his hasty assessment of the outfit, and seemed designed to flush out his colour despite the draining look the suit would give him, and fell lower than he would have anticipated. 

“There’s no collar.”

“Oh, there is, but that’s a Nif thing,” Prompto indicated the delicate silver chain looped around the hanger like an accessory necklace and Noctis paled. 

“No. Absolutely not. Tell them I’m sick or something.”

“Sorry, buddy, I tried to talk them out of it.”

“Not hard enough.”

“Said it would be an insult to Lucis and everything; Lord Ravus even backed me up.”

“And?”

Noctis knew the answer before it even came, the sneering, smug face of the man he just knew was responsible for this torture flashed before his mind’s eye; “And the Chancellor insisted you dress the part of a Nif omega of your status.”

It was vengeance, Noctis was sure of it. Some punishment for whatever insult he managed to let slip in the one and only meeting he had with the Chancellor so far. Not that he had been free of the Chancellor’s influence in any way. There had been small gestures— “gifts” left on the shelf by the door after returning from some walk through the barren halls, books added to the library in seemingly sporadic returns— peppered through his dull daily life in the Keep that just screamed the man’s influence. There was a definite creeping sense of malice stemming from the whole ordeal now— the invitation to the banquet he couldn’t turn down, being dressed up like some doll to be on display, and now the actual outfit he was expected to wear in what he was certain would be broadcast back to Lucis live if the Nifs had any say in the matter— all carried the same ridiculous air of political machinations he had spent most of his life avoiding in the Citadel. Only here, he had less clout. Less of a voice.

And far less independence than what he knew came with more elevated Lucian sensibilities. 

He didn’t even know what the banquet was for— what event warranted him being dragged out from his near isolation to be presented to the Imperial court— other than that he hadn’t been invited so much as informed that his presence would be ‘expected.’

He thought of all the times Ignis had helped him escape similar circumstances back home; banquets and meetings and events he had managed to avoid with the support of his friend’s clever thinking and his father’s indulgence. Hell— Noctis grumbled as he snatched the offending garment from Prompto and stalked to the bathroom— he can’t even remember the last time his father didn’t have his back in his escape from one of the balls or banquets held in the honour of some noble house or other. 

Despite the rush of shower and noise of the vents of Zegnautus with its ever present hum of machinery, Noctis heard the door open and close in the room beyond. He dressed efficiently, but lingered over his hair out of spite, listening for the muted tones of Prompto’s chipper voice and whomever had invited themselves into his rooms. From the softness and barely perceptible words heard through the bathroom door, he presumed Ravus was the offending Nif. 

“You look,” Ravus almost sneered as Noctis finally left the bathroom, only missing the white jacket and the silver collar he had no intention of figuring out how to wear until the last possible moment; “completely ridiculous.”

“I know,” Noctis fussed with the lines of the shirt that he realized too late was more fitted than he first realized. The line of the shirt hang low enough to be uncomfortable, but not enough to need constant the constant adjustments he expected. “How long do I need to be at this thing?”

“Not long,” Ravus took the white jacket from the hanger where Noctis had left it, holding it out to ensure it was worn correctly. Noctis shrugged it on, swatting away Ravus’ hands once he had it on. His hands moved to the few buttons afforded; “I’ll make it up to you.”

“Yeah? By getting me out of here?”

“Something like that. But you are expected to behave.”

“Yeah, great, perfect little fawning omega.”

Prompto helped with the collar, fastening the loops of the chain together around Noctis’ throat and letting it rest. “Just missing a leash, buddy.”

“You had better be joking.” The chain slithered against his skin, and the chill of the mechanical fortress seemed to seep through with it. He was already cold, and uncomfortable, and Prompto just offered a shrug in response. 

The chill was not helped by the stark white of the hallways and the blizzard beating against the wide, uncovered windows. Noctis fell into step beside Ravus through the halls as he had before, the more colourful and decorated corridors instantly warming him against the sterile and desolate corridor he still new better. Outside of the little corner of the Keep, the world seemed to widen again; it grew with colours and luxuries Noctis wasn’t even sure were even considered in most of Insomnia. The carpets smothered the sounds of their steps that had echoed through the empty halls moments before, the art (stolen or not) invited them to pause and explore the decorated hallways as Noctis had done once his world had opened up beyond the locked doors of the barren Lucian hallway. There was an instant warmth to the rest of the Keep that Noctis knew what wholly manufactured. 

There was still the familiar hum of whatever machinery kept the fortress aloft as it reverberated through the walls and floors as they moved from one conquered territory to the next, but it seemed more muted when the carpets muffled the reminder of it. Their own steps lost to the plush luxury of the Nif decorations, where even the dulled echo was muted by the abundance of stolen art on the walls. The corner lounges where hallways met were beacons of warm light and colour against the harsh blizzard white of the sky beyond the glass, and Noctis paused at one as they waited for the elevator Ravus summoned at the end of one corridor. This was the furthest Noctis had been since, and he peeked out the window to the grey outline of the caldera ridge in the distance and the shape of the city below, hoping to see something through the storm that he could commit to memory as something helpful. 

The elevator opened with no announcement other than Ravus’ pointed cough to clear his throat. Noctis saw the slight shift of the familiar guards turning to watch the interaction with a disinterested curiosity he had come to expect from the constant surveillance; he slipped into the role he had planned with Ravus and hurried back to the High Commander’s side. 

“This is where that leash would be useful,” Ravus muttered, a touch of a smirk on his lips as Noctis elbowed his ribs before managing an innocent smile as the elevator delivered them to another floor. 

The hallway was the same constricted, narrow corridor as the others Noctis had grown used to. He thought it similar to the library lobby, where the small checkpoint available to him closed off the much larger rooms. Only this checkpoint was manned by more than one bored guard in a dull uniform. Four officers stood at attention, flanking doorways that mirrored both sides of the small lobby. Like the MTs who patrolled the halls, the officers did not acknowledge their approach, or the way the door slid open to accommodate them. There was no greeting, no familiarity, not recognition of Ravus’ own presence moving between them and through to the enormous room set aside for events like the one held now.

More guards lined the room, with few MTs still as statues at key positions scattered against the walls, mechanical eyes scanning the room. But it was an attendant who acknowledged them, bowing and then offering an announcement to the room; “His Highness Prince Noctis Lucis Caelum of Insomnia, and Lord High Commander Ravus Nox Fleuret.”

The slight was obvious, even to Noctis who had only spent an unnecessary amount of bored hours reading through the outdated tomes on etiquette in the Imperial court and nobility. 

The pause in conversation from the scattered Nif groups was audible. Noctis felt Ravus stiffen beside him before leading him to one of the quieter corners of the event hall; he adopted the same guarded expression, letting their unified front greet the curious looks and disdainful glances that joined the rise in conversation again. The return of the dropped conversations was joined with the chime of glasses and clatter of dishes. The rumble of the Keep faded to a mechanical background ambiance as more guests arrived and joined the small pockets of people giving them a wide berth. 

Ravus offered small comments, names and ranks as Noctis openly watched the Nifs arrive. With a glance back to the slighted High Commander, Noctis realized he was also watching the gathering party but in reflection from the window; the dazzling colours of the rich outfits— golds and silvers, the stark whites and glittering crimsons of fabrics Noctis was certain he could never name— standing out against the greying blizzard winds beyond the window. Ravus offered a mild admonishment to Noctis’ study of the Imperial court; “You’re staring.”

“So are you,” Noctis countered, before gladly swiping a tall flute of golden liquid from a refreshed server who had finally managed to make his way over to them. “I take it you stand in corners and brood a lot at these things?”

“I’m not dignifying that,” Ravus waved the server on without taking a drink; “and don’t over indulge.”

“I can hold my drinks.”

“But not the gossip,” Ravus offered a cordial nod to a passing dignitary who moved along quickly. “Behave.”

At least, Noctis mused, the outfit chosen for him was hardly as ridiculous as most of the others out already floating about on the luxury carpet. He realized, amid the glow of the golden chandeliers and the rich decorations, that thhe room they had entered wasn’t even the primary banquet hall. The few chairs that had been artfully littered around the corners of the room were already occupied by guests Noctis assumed by their clothes were omega spouses to the more uniformed and pompous dignitaries standing about and guffawing at pointed intervals. The drinks being served were alternated between servers— tall flutes of the weak sparkling wine Noctis had taken, and stout glasses of some liquor that servers seemed to sweep past him with— and replaced suspiciously quickly. Few demurred from the refreshments, save Ravus, and Noctis found that no food was being offered to tide the guests over while they waited.

Obvious cameras were in each corner and above each doorway, the MTs an unmoving second set of surveillance placed in the blind spots. The doors opened and closed with announcements of names and stations, roles and pageantry that flew through his mind as he watched the next arrival and the next. With each new arrival, the pockets of people grew. Medals and ornaments glittered beneath the golden light, until they could have been gathered as part of the decoration. 

A familiar figure caught Noctis’ attention. One of the few figures not adorned in Nif whites and reds, the man was a bespectacled familiar sight. Noctis nearly smiled in relief at the familiarity of the Lucian blacks and greys of an Insomnian suit modelled after the style his father had made popular with it’s pinstripes and close cuts. The guarded confidence of a natural diplomat forced into enemy territory was almost a relief amid the comfortable arrogance of the Nifs surrounding them now. 

“My Prince,” the Lucian bowed with the clipped expertise of his father’s court. Noctis hadn’t realized that he would miss the simplest gesture; “if I may?”

Noctis realized belatedly that the last part was addressed to Ravus, who offered a small nod before the diplomat approached closer and offered a motion to lead Noctis a few steps away. Head bowed to keep their conversation private, the man offered a genuine smile of relief. Noctis wished he remembered the ambassador’s name. Ignis would have killed him for forgetting. 

“It’s good to see you, your Highness. I was petitioning to let me see you, to reassure His Majesty, and—”

“Yeah,” Noctis nodded his understanding, suddenly aware of the eyes on them; “it’s been slow to get any answers around here.”

He offered a smile, something familiar and pleasant for the pockets and cliques of decorated Nif military officers scattered within earshot. “I’ve been well taken care of. You didn’t need to worry.”

The man straightened and offered another bow, the bland mask of a professional diplomat fell into place, and Noctis let himself fall back to the aloof demeanour he had adopted for his father’s Council. “Your Highness, please do not hesitate to reach out to me for any of your needs.”

It was a display for the camera overhead, and the red eyes of the MT less than three meters away; a formal Lucian offer that Noctis knew was meaningless back home, but could be presented as declaration of fealty in the heart of enemy territory. Noctis offered a quick nod as he would have had the same declaration been made back in the Citadel; “Thank you for your consideration, Sir Aquila.”

The name had rushed back to him with the phantom of Ignis’ chiding tone, but the man offered a surprised and genuine smile in response before stepping away. Noctis turned back to Ravus, already wary of the way the ambassador had been so obvious in his greeting, his response. 

“Idiot,” Ravus muttered, taking the half-empty glass from Noctis’ hand to set aside. “I do hope you don’t plan of relying on him for information.”

“He’s survived this long.”

“You really think that makes him useful?”

“Not in a way I need.” Noctis met the eyes of half a dozen guests who would have been imposing or intimidating if they hadn’t been in dress uniforms and holding a mix of drinks and shining under the chandeliers. “But needs must, right?”

“You’re smarter than that.”

“That sounds like a compliment.”

A final announcement was made— a declaration that they were to enjoy dinner— as a set of wide and ornate doors Noctis had thought were a wall opened to reveal the next room. Long tables, set with gleaming clean plates and shiny cutlery was on display as the gathered nobility started to follow the order to move on to their seats. Ravus hand rested lightly on his arm to guide him through after the bulk of the crowd had carried through to the lines of tables. Noctis noticed that places were marked with crisp folded cards. 

The room was dominated by the tables. Set in lines, Noctis realized belatedly and with a touch of horror that Ravus was leading him toward the smaller table that was obviously the most important of the display. Eyes followed them until they reached the end of the shorter table, and Noctis pretended that his stomach didn’t drop at the sight of his name printed neatly on a folded white card at the end of the table, with Ravus placed between himself and Besithia. Just two places from Emperor Aldercapt. 

He had just taken his designated seat when another door opened and the Emperor entered the room with his own advisers in tow.


	9. Chapter 9

The meal had passed with a rush of conversation Noctis had not been part of. The head table had been suspiciously silent, the few comments made between the Emperor and the Chancellor between courses were carried with a flourish of pantomime drama that seemed to rise from the other tables in imitation. Praise for the meal— adoration for the light Altissian soups and appetizers, curious commentary of the Gralean main dishes and wines— rose and fell like waves between the talk of current events and gossip Noctis only vaguely heard. He caught snippets here and there, commentaries and quips that floated up above the general noise of conversation from the tables nearest with names that he didn’t recognize and places he didn’t know. There was a bad harvest in one region, and an outpost elsewhere had a rash of rebellious uprising there; there were quips about places like Galdin and Ravatogh, and Tenebrae that swept over the room in the peaks of the white-tipped rapids of diplomatic conversation. 

At least he had yet to be dragged into any conversation at this main table between bites of the food. Ravus’ silence at his side was hardly a comfort as the High Commander fended off the other guests’ attempts to drag him into the murky depths with jibes and bobbing complaints about the state of the military floated like targets around them. 

Noctis knew that, in this place and in this setting, it was better to keep his mouth shut and observe. 

Had he been home, he would have been flanked by his friends. The main table would have been long and loud, with conversation passed between them and over the head of the king between bites of food so familiar they wouldn’t have noticed it. He thought of the last feast held in the Citadel, how he had sat next to his father, trading snide comments on the food like when he was a child until Clarus rolled his eyes and found another topic to distract them. He remembered Ignis’ careful scrutiny of the food, while Gladio threatened to steal bites from his plate if he kept staring at the dishes. 

He remembered the way the room had felt alive. A band playing soft string music in one corner to complement the festive mood. 

He remembered the way Nyx had been seated within sight, trading smiles over drinks. 

The Niflheim banquet may have been a memorial in comparison. It’s bland courses sapped of any life while the conversation rose and fell between the tables without ever requiring the speakers to mingle on a topic. Noctis listened as words from one table sparked talk at another, the nearest tables vying for royal attention with remarks on headlines, while the more distant diversions seemed to be where the real conversations were happening; more heated talks happened further away, and without furtive glances toward a wholly disinterested Emperor.

When the Chancellor stood with the flourish Noctis had come to expect from him, the room fell into a hushed silence before the man even commanded it. He tapped a spoon against his glass and Noctis saw Ravus stiffen as attention was turned to the second most powerful man in the room. 

“Ladies and Gentlemen, esteemed guests,” he started, then bowed low to the Emperor he had been sitting next to the entire meal; “Your Grace, if I may?”

There was really no pause for permission, but the Emperor offered a slight gesture and a nod as the Chancellor ploughed ahead; “We are here today to celebrate many things that our great Emperor has achieved. We have secured our borders, sent aid to the allied nations to ease their struggle through past hardships, ensured the fair spread of Gralea’s untold wealth and prosperity is spread to those who need it most. And now, in the light of His Grace’s most magnanimous wisdom, we gather to celebrate a union that will cement the peace we all fought so very hard to secure.”

Noctis paled as the glass still in the man’s hand was raised in his direction— an indication for all to see that he and Ravus were set together. A formal announcement. A formal declaration of betrothal that Noctis wasn’t entirely certain had been declared for Lucis yet. He had known it was coming sooner or later, but he had wanted at least to delay it longer than a few days after agreeing to the whole ruse.

Still the Chancellor turned an indulgent smile to him that was mirrored by the crowd. Glasses raised to the light in a matched celebration. 

“A most humble toast to the union that will secure peace for so many future generations.”

Ravus offered a thin-lipped acknowledgement and raised a glass of his own in polite acceptance of the well-wishes while Noctis did the same before ducking his head in what he hoped would be taken as an omega’s humility in the face of so much attention. And not let on that he was fuming at the attention itself. Whatever was left of the meal passed in a frustrated resentment dulled by constant reminder that he had been prepared for this. He and Ravus had worked to actually make this farce believable, they still had more to do to ensure that the people now smiling at the announcement ringing in his ears believed every moment and interaction after this point of no return. That the world would believe and support the lie they were trying to sell. 

But the announcement made it so much more real than he expected. 

This was no longer some game scenario he had been toying with. Tomorrow morning, it would be plastered across every newspaper in Eos, he was sure. Prompto’s daily delivery would bear headlines of the announcement; though there were no photographers lurking in the corners of the dining room, Noctis just knew that there was going to be some image of him and Ravus standing close enough to prove the headline true included. There would be his whole history plastered across the daily pages to let the Empire know just who the beloved High Commander had chosen, and Noctis knew that his royal record was flawless enough to keep any complaints at a minimal. They would make it believable.

He wondered if Nyx would believe it. 

If Nyx would see the story as they wanted it told— a childhood betrothal between friendly families honoured after so many years at war— and demand an explanation or intervention. If Nyx would just accept the terms as a condition of peace for now, still under negotiation. If Nyx would think it was real.

The touch on his arm startled him out of his thoughts, his horror at the realization that the plan to ensure his independence and survival was suddenly real. Ravus bowed close, the very image of a concerned alpha to anyone looking at them as the dinner ended and the crowd started to move. The reality of his tone lost in the glances of those around them and the quiet bite of his order easy to miss; “Focus, Noctis.”

“Right. Right, I’m fine.”

“Good,” Ravus pulled away a moment before standing from the table and making the expected gestures to guide Noctis up. “Dessert is served in the other room.”

“Please tell me there’s no dancing.”

“No dancing,” Ravus agreed as the Emperor gestured and the doors to the room they had entered from were opened wide. “It’s a social affair.”

Noctis let himself be led. It was bullying, pushing, a guiding hand where he had never submitted or been expected to submit to the patronizing touch before. He took a deep breath, and allowed Ravus to guide him along like the gracious doll he was dressed up to be. He offered the polite, masked smiles he knew from his own royal roles as congratulations chimed around him and Ravus as they moved the short distance from one room to the next. 

His friends would never let him live this down when it was over. Nyx would never let him live it down. 

The room they had all been corralled into earlier had been cleared; lines crossing the plush carpets indicated where the newly reset tables had been dragged through to their places against one empty wall, the golden chandeliers dimmed to a warm glow indicative of a more intimate setting than the hollow room, and the window now buffetted by the blizzard outside seemed darkened against the natural light Noctis had forgotten about. The afternoon was pushing through the dying storm and Noctis beelined around the congratulatory crowd to the windows, only vaguely aware of Ravus making excuses for his slipping away to try to compose himself before the princely mask could crack.

“Noctis—” Ravus started, barely steps behind him as some new military Noctis knew he should know stepped up to demand Ravus’ attention.

“My dear Prince,” unfortunately, excuses didn’t work on Chancellors. Noctis forced himself not to bristle at the endearment, watching the reflection approaching him without turning to face the Chancellor head on; “please let me be the first to offer my most happy congratulations on this announcement; even though it is a mere formality at this point.”

Noctis knew that he was under scrutiny. More so than normal. He knew that his reactions and interactions would possibly be broadcast across Eos more than they ever had been when he was at similar events in the Citadel. He had forced himself not to recoil and snap at the Chancellor, now he forced himself to turn and offer a pleasant smile. A political smile— Ignis once said when they were young and learning that the politeness of the Council rooms and throne rooms was different than the manners expected in the halls— that would be clearly seen as a polite gesture and nothing more. “Thank you all the same, Chancellor. I’m sure Niflheim will be interested in just who its High Commander chooses.”

“That it is,” Ardyn drawled his agreement, slipping closer with a conspirator's ease; “Something of a public darling, your beloved betrothed is, but I’m sure you knew that. Just as I hear you are in the grand wonder of Insomnia. I’m sure the whole of Eos will celebrate for you.”

Noctis drew back a step on instinct, but kept the smile in place. He offered a muttered; “From Tenebrae to Galdin, I’m sure.”

“And you do know how these stories go,” Ardyn said with all the enthusiasm of someone ignoring whatever discomfort he was causing; “such a lovely union will be the very symbol of peace the world over.”

He had turned from the reflections to offer that polite, insincere smile to the Chancellor directly. There was a Lucian diplomat waylaid by peers nearby just as Ravus had been redirected by the congratulations of the other decorated brigadiers and generals in attendance; avenues of escape from the Chancellor cut until the path had narrowed to just weathering the polite facade until he could be rescued. 

Noctis was never one for sitting around and waiting. He folded his hands before him and met the Chancellor’s challenge; “As it should be, Chancellor. I’m sure the arrangements will be made soon. In the meantime…”

He stepped around the Chancellor with the determination of a half-formed plan guiding him. It was enough of an assertive move to get him across the short distance needed to impose on the Emperor directly, while the Chancellor turned after him and he felt the hush fall over the vibrant conversations in his wake. Years of training flooded back to him on instinct, and he offered the bow necessary only because he was a Prince and not a King in his own right when the Emperor turned his attention to the wayward omega daring to approach. 

“Your Radiance, I wanted to thank you personally for your generous hospitality since I arrived.”

“What a bold young-” The Chancellor had caught up, and Noctis felt him at his back. He knew if he let it happen, Ardyn would swan in again to guide him elsewhere. 

“If I may ask your indulgence, Emperor Aldercapt?”

He was in within moments, ushered to the Emperor’s side with a smile and closeness that Noctis assumed was show for whatever cameras were watching and waiting to add to their report. 

He remembered seeing the pictures of the Emperor in textbooks when he was young. He remembered stories of the ‘great wisdoms’ all rulers were afforded until something went wrong. And for a fleeting moment, the man before him looked like he did in the old portraits— a kind smile, warm eyes— and the Emperor beckoned him closer with a gesture as the conversation in the room returned. Noctis stepped forward and accepted the Emperor’s offer of a drink while they waited for the desserts to be delivered. 

“I’m glad you have found your accommodations generous, Prince Noctis.”

The Chancellor stayed back several steps, as Noctis expected in the wake of a royal conversation. He bowed his head and offered a more flattering smile, setting his own plans in motion.


	10. Chapter 10

“That idiot,” Ignis muttered as his pen moved over the copy of the letters to cross out combinations and codes. “That stupid, reckless child.”

Nyx smirked across the table, his own notes being made in margins and on scraps of pages on the table between them. Leaning back in his chair, he balanced himself with his feet hooked beneath Ignis’ table; “That’s our Prince you’re talking about, Specs.”

“Royal blood doesn’t mean he’s not an idiot,” the letters were set aside as Ignis lifted his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose, fighting off the headache that followed both the news spreading from Gralea and the letters from Noctis that had followed. For weeks, the papers imported from outside of Lucis had run the same stories and images: Noctis formally engaged to the High Commander of the Nif military, standing in pleasant conversation with Emperor Aldercapt. Rumours of hours the Lucian Crown Prince had spent in Ravus’ company, images of the slow introduction to the rest of Gralea by small steps and carefully crafted appearances in the right company. “He’s not a spy, and this is getting out of hand.”

There were whole articles being spread through Niflheim’s considerable territory about just how calming and sweet Noctis was. How gentle and perfect the Royal Omega really was. Years of propaganda being unravelled in quick and masterful strokes across Eos, until even Lucis was in agreement that the rest of the world was “finally seeing the Prince for who he was.” 

It was infuriating and dangerous, in Ignis’ opinion. 

But no one was asking his opinion in the matter. 

“At least we know where he is at any given time, now,” Nyx offered. “With pictures and everything.”

“You’re awfully calm for a man about to watch his lover get married off to some other asshole,” Gladio dropped a handful of books on the table between them, covering the map that no longer needed the careful updates Ignis had been plotting out. 

Nyx smiled and straightens in his seat. He set his letters down on the table with the books, his notes in the margins filled with numbers and arrows to relevant parts of Noctis’ innocent writings. “You’re awfully calm for a Shield who’s out here when his Prince has been captured.”

“Watch it, Ulric.”

“Bite me, Amicitia.”

Ignis rose from his seat with a sigh, the notes made from Nyx’s letters in hand for review. “Was there anything new or useful, Nyx?”

“There are about five hundred MT guards at set stations in the Keep, with—”

“Five hundred?! Are you sure you got the code right?”

Nyx ignored Gladio’s shock at the numbers; “With at least twenty on active patrols through the residential quarters at any given time. There are up to three human officers for every troop.”

“So we can expect a full battalion in the Keep,” Ignis mused and made notes of his own; “At least. Do we have a commander for them yet?”

“No,” Nyx admitted; “But he’s working on the names.”

“It would be Loqi Tummelt if Ravus was not in residence.Our number match for the current active troops in and around the Keep. But you’re looking at a full brigade of MTs and human officers. I’ll get word that we need more than the numbers.” The three men turned to face Cor as he lingered in the doorway, cold eyes looking over the mess of their work. He stood with a hand on the heavy door, the Citadel hallways radiant in the afternoon sun. “Ulric, a word.”

Nyx was on his feet before the Marshal had finished his name, shouldering past Gladio as he obeyed the order and Marshal’s lead out to the hallway. Ignis moved quickly to stop the door from closing in Nyx’s wake entirely, easing himself against the door to eavesdrop despite Gladio’s amusement. He gave Gladio a pointed look to remind him of the value of silence as he turned his attention to the notes in hand as he listened. 

“I got you the clearance you wanted, and the leave you requested,” Cor led Nyx several steps down the empty hall. The room they had commandeered for the work of deciphering Noctis’ letters buried deep in the Citadel maze and off any path that would be in common use. Not even the cleaning staff made their way to the forgotten corner more than once a week at most. A visit from Cor came with a reason. “But I do want to make sure you’re set on this, Ulric.”

“I am, Sir.”

“And these coded messages?”

“Those two know what they’re doing.”

Cor crossed his arms, the weeks of restless worry for the Crown Prince written on his face; “Are you absolutely sure this will work?”

“Not in the least. But it will give you whatever opening you need.”

“It’s too hard to time that way, the variables are—”

“With all due respect, Sir,” Ignis sucked in his breath at Nyx’s interruption. No one interrupted Cor, but Nyx pressed on; “but this is Noctis we’re talking about and I can’t just sit here doing nothing.”

There was a long moment of silence in the hallway which tempted Ignis to leave his place next to the door. He was almost certain that if he did peek out from the doorway he would see Nyx dead on the floor for the interruption, the tone. For whatever plan he was attempting to cook up without them. His mind conjured up every possible scenario— Nyx going in alone, going home, starting an insurrection elsewhere that would give them the opportunity to attack… There were possibilities Ignis was certain he could have never considered that Nyx might have already set in motion. He looked down at the copy of the letter in his hand, noting the doodles in Noctis’ careless style being underscored here and there with little responses in Nyx’s own more natural hand. The little crowned stars had become as familiar as the images Noctis had taken for his own coded information. 

“Who are you taking with you?”

There was a resignation in Cor’s voice. A quiet acceptance to the inevitable force that was Nyx Ulric. 

“Crowe Altius and Libertus Ostium.”

“Fine, I’ll make sure they get the time. But I want to be looped in at every step.”

“Yes, Sir.” 

Ignis could hear the smirk in Nyx’s voice. He could see the movement of Cor uncrossing his arms as he takes that as an end to the conversation. “Is there anything else you needed?”

“An army would be nice.”

“I’m giving you enough free reign as it is. Work out the signal and Lucis will have your back.”

“You sound like the Captain.”

“You should listen to him more. Just get Noctis back, Ulric. That’s your only mission.”

“Thought I was on leave, Marshal.”

“And don’t push your luck.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Ignis didn’t bother to move from his spot by the door when Nyx returned to their little stronghold. Nor did Gladio move when Nyx tried to return to his seat. Feet on the seat Nyx had left, Gladio refused to relinquish his position as he stared the Glaive down; “Going somewhere, Ulric?”

Ignis rolled his eyes at the lack of subtlety, having hoped to get a better understanding of Nyx’s plans before demanding the details. “We overheard you.”

“No kidding. Sorry, kids, it’s classified.”

“It involves Noct, we need to know.”

“Then ask the Marshal.” Nyx reached across the table to collect the original copies of Noctis’ letters. “There’s nothing set in stone yet.”

“Then,” Ignis moved to block the door when Nyx turned to leave; “give us some warning. What are you planning?”

There was a brief moment as Nyx hesitated at the insistence. Ignis could see the resolve start to crumble— whatever promise of secrecy falling away given the hours they had spent together looking over the same information and with the same care. He knew that they were allies in this mess, and he knew that Nyx valued that loyalty just the same as he valued the camaraderie of the Glaive. This just had the benefit of Noctis as their anchor point. 

“I’m going home to Galahd. A couple of weeks at most. Talk to the Marshal if you have any other questions.”


	11. Chapter 11

“You’re a reckless child,” their steps echoed through the quiet corridors of the residential corner of the Keep. Ravus’ hand a vice around Noctis’ arm as he dragged the Lucian Prince toward the privacy of the Tenebraean lounge, barely stopping as the few servants in the halls paused at the sight. The resulting glare sent them skittering for the safety of their chores as far away from the commotion as they could get as Ravus hurried to get Noctis to somewhere quiet. “A stupid, reckless child.”

“You sound like Ignis,” Noctis muttered, even as Ravus forced him into one of the seats that was far more comfortable than anything in the Lucian quarter. Like a child who knew he was in trouble Noctis stayed where he was placed, not quite sulking as he was released to the comfort of the overstuffed chair. “It was just—”

“It was stupid,” Ravus snapped to silence him. He turned his anger to Prompto, who had followed silently and clutching the training swords in his hands as he had followed them from the training rooms. Ravus snatched the heavy equipment with a snarl; “Go get a first aid kit and make yourself useful.”

Prompto nodded, his eyes wide and stumbling a step back from the full force of the High Commander’s barely contained rage. 

“Hey!” Noctis did stand at that; “Don’t start on Prompto. The whole thing was my idea.”

Neither omega was actually meant to have access to the gyms and the adjacent sparring rooms, but they had managed to gain access all the same. They had managed to get their way into not only a place that most would have considered taboo for the omegas of a nobility housed in the strange fortress, but they had been sparring when Ravus found them. The heavy wood of the training swords striking each other— first in measured, instructional strokes, then in the faster clatter of actual sparring— had stopped suddenly at the intrusion. Or should have. Distracted by Ravus’ order to stop, he had missed the planned block he and Prompto had worked out, taking a blow to the cheek that was now blossoming red and had caused him to bite his lip ask he rolled with it as had been ingrained back with his training growing up. 

“And we’ve already established that you’re an idiot, Noctis,” but the distraction worked, and Prompto took the escape Noctis had provided. As the blond vanished to the mercifully quiet hallways. Ravus pushed him back to the chair; “Stay.”

Ravus suspected that there was some sort of insolent charm Noctis had that he was steadfastly immune to. But in the quiet privacy of the Tenebraean lounge, he found himself more agitated than normal by the easy and undeserved confidence Noctis seemed to operate on. He paced the narrow space between the overstuffed chairs, barely avoiding the low tables fashioned from the stolen husks of sacred trees destroyed in the Nif Occupation and dragged across the world for demeaning display masked as a homage. The walls had been adorned for years with tapestries he had known from his childhood home, and now the theft of them was less infuriating than the sulking child of a royal he had just dragged through the mercifully empty halls. 

“Going to order me around like a pet?”

“If that’s what it takes.” The hand on his chin was gentle in contrast to Ravus’ waning fury. Noctis sighed and let himself be inspected, the redness of his cheek and the minor split lip nothing compared to the bruising that would be appearing over the next few hours. “You’re going to be confined to your rooms until this heals.”

“What?”

“I’m not letting you out looking like that. People will already be talking.” When the lounge door opened, Ravus had jumped back as if Noctis’ skin burned his hand. Seeing Prompto returning with a little kit in his hands was almost a relief. Ravus grabbed the familiar box and retrieved the a cold pack from the tightly packed bandages, antiseptics, and delicate tools. The kit was discarded on one of the low tables set between the overstuffed chairs and the cold pack was pressed to activate it before being unceremoniously pressed to Noctis’ cheek. “Hold this here until I say otherwise.” 

“It’s a bruise! It’s nothing!”

“It’s not nothing when you’re an omega under my care. I will not have my reputation tarnished because you were feeling restless.” 

“Oh please, there are pictures of me when I was hurt as a kid going around. Lucis has seen me in much worse shape than just a bruise from sparring.”

“To be fair, Noct,” Prompto said, speaking up as he re-organized the first aid kit; “that is different. It’s about sympathy, and you were a cute kid.”

Ravus huffed, “Yes, and none of them know what a pain in my ass you were then, too. So you’ll stay in your rooms, and we’ll think up some excuse.”

Noctis fell back to the seat, face numbed by the cold pack he was holding lightly against the heat he could now feel blooming. “Fine. I’ll just go back to being a prisoner.”

“You thought your situation had changed?” At Noctis’ confused look, Ravus rolled his eyes and muttered some curse at the Prince’s naivete. He took a seat of his own; “You will always be a prisoner of Niflheim, until you are no longer within their grasp. I know from experience.”

“Says the High Commander.”

“The title is only a tool, you child.”

“Stop calling me that.”

“Then stop acting like one.”

“Okay!” Prompto snapped the first aid kit closed in his hands, cutting off the argument already brewing before it could get any further and they completely forgot that he was sitting there as witness. “How about we tell people Noct is having his heat? It should be soon anyway, right? Blame stress for a longer one or short one or whatever?”

“My heat?” Noctis tried to calculate the actual cycle in his mind; the earlier days blending together between the attack on the train and the transportation to the isolated and cold lab before Gralea. He tried to count the weeks since— those long stretches of boredom as he scoured the useless library and watched the strange city so far below him blending into one mass of time lost— and found that he was definitely missing more time than he was comfortable with. “How long have I been here?”

“Nearly three months.” Prompto shrugged at the shocked look, stretching to lift the cold pack back to Noctis’ cheek to ward off the bruise; “More or less. The talk in the labs is that you’re late. They want to run more tests, but the Chancellor is refusing in case the rumours start.”

Ravus crossed his arms; “Stress, then. The situation and the sudden changes in climate will suffice as an excuse. But yes, start that talk, Prompto.”

Noctis groaned and covered his eyes with the cold pack, horrified that he had forgotten all about the annoyances of biology. “It’s probably not that far from the truth. Do it. I’ll stay in. That actually explains a lot lately.”

“You being an insufferable ass?” Ravus smiled at the assessment, even as Prompto stood to start the rumormongering they would need; “Because I can assure you, Noctis, that is your normal behaviour.”

“Fuck off, Rav. The restlessness. If I was back in Lucis I’d have my sparring partners to take it out on, and my usual distractions.”

“Ulric, I’m assuming.”

“Yes, Ulric.” Noctis did let himself smile at the memory of the Glaive. He had been itching to move for days. The brief outings to the city’s approved presentations had whetted his appetite to move and feel the fresh air again. The carefully planned appearances had him dressed up for the Nifs, quiet and still at Ravus’ side while some official ceremony happened— medals for officers, announcements from the Keep, holidays that Noctis had barely noticed as they passed with a lack of fanfare— and nothing more. But he had seen the long stretches of roads and rails, and the bright lights of theatres and other venues beckoning from the dramatic heights of the Keep. He had thought that the itch of restlessness had come from the taste of freedom he had managed to get. “And actual freedom to go out and do things and blow off some steam.”

At a glance, Noctis was unable to read Ravus’ expression. But he didn’t need to dwell on it as the man stood and ushered him to his feet. Cold pack in hand, they started to leave the privacy of the lounge. Prompto left with the pillaged first aid kit in hand to start the spread of the rumours, while Ravus led Noctis back to his rooms at a far more sedate pace than when they had arrived. He kept an arm around Noctis as if consoling him when they came across the staff starting to move deeper into the residential quarter to go about their duties. 

There had been a growing collection of art and images being moved into the previously empty halls Noctis was familiar with. Images of Cauthess and the stone arches of Duscae had appeared seemingly overnight after the formal acceptance Noctis had received into Nif society. There were portions of wall he could see down near the end of the corridor now hidden by a cloth and a bright caution tape he hadn’t dared to test yet. But he assumed that there was more art coming, similar to the permanent trophies displayed in the other hallways he was becoming more familiar with. It had helped, he supposed, with the pangs of homesickness that he was now wondering might be attributed to the heat he realized was coming. 

The more he considered the familiarity of the halls, the comfort with the Keep and its maze of hallways, the more the idea of it being considered ‘home’ unsettled him. 

At his own doors, Ravus released him; “The next time you want to spar, ask me. I’ll set something up.”


	12. Chapter 12

Heat was exactly as it was named. Noctis knew that he was reaching a point of no return when even stepping outside to the heavily guarded skywalk corridors where he could feel the cold of Gralea’s funneled and whipping winds beating against the Keep did little to calm his fevered skin. He had tried to follow routines that had been drilled into him from his youth— Gladio’s recommendations to exhaust himself with exercise, Ignis’ insistence on a new focus to distract him— which were easier in Insomnia but failed in this foreign land and captivity.

At home he had the freedom to do more than sit and stew with the rising, feverish ache that left him wanting to move and touch and tear the walls he was confined to down. Had he been home, the ache would have been doused by Nyx’s confident touch. He would have had the city to escape into, the green parks and the warren-like districts where there was an endless stretch of nothing to confine him. 

And this was a confinement. 

Despite the hallways opened to him and the little tricks he had picked up for the long stretches of boredom, the familiar stark walls sent his skin crawling. 

All he could think about was how much he missed his home, his friends. Nyx. 

He would be lost in thought at the idea of Nyx’s hands on him, of the last few nights they had spent nested together in the tiny apartment Nyx called home. He could think of the smell of Nyx— his musk, his soap— the wait he had wrapped himself in Nyx’s blankets with a grin while the Glaive had laughed and indulged him. The way the small room had filled with the homey scent of meat and spices and the perfumes of a thousand different things that Noctis couldn’t name but ached for just in its familiarity. 

The halls of the Keep smelled like nothing. Sterile cleaning products and the pinprick of paint that annoyed him because it wasn’t home. Prompto had tried to help; he had found flowers from Lucis somewhere, he had found Lucian newspapers, and a Lucian book. But the food that was sent to him stuck in his throat and he was anxious to move. Just. Move.

As soon as Ravus made a habit of visiting, Noctis found that his attention shifted from the frustration of not being home to the absolute fury that the alpha had dared to step into his space. 

There was a familiarity to Ravus though. There was a comfort in his movements and the way Ravus simply imposed himself into the room without the attempt to conquer it. There was a distant memory of Ravus in the white halls of Fenestala Manor, smiling despite an exasperation that had teased at him in the sun-dappled afternoons spent there. 

Noctis had refused to acknowledge it then. He had waited, curled in frustration on his bed— his ‘nest’ as Prompto recited as if from some damned textbook until Noctis had thrown a pillow at him— as Ravus simply sat at his table. Picked at his food. Read the stories of Lucis as they were delivered in silence. When Noctis told him to leave, he left. When Noctis told him to stay where he was, he stayed where he was. 

But as the breaking point— that feverish urge to just fight and rage and throw himself against the walls— neared, Noctis found that he didn’t know if he wanted Ravus to stay or go. 

“Why the fuck are you even here?” He snapped as he paced the room for the hundredth time in the two days he had been confined by the heat. 

“Appearances,” Ravus answered, eyes and attention on the newspaper delivered that morning— the one that spoke of treaties and alliances, and made assumptions about him as if he were an afterthought in the whole matter of his own captivity— until Noctis hated that the alpha’s attention was anywhere but on him; “mostly.”

“Mostly?”

“I’m familiar to you. It will help.”

“So you being here is supposed to help me?”

“Theoretically, yes.” When Ravus finally looked up from the collection of headlines, Noctis felt a sick twist of satisfaction in the act. As if he had won something by being slightly more interesting than a newspaper. “I’m not trying to fight you, Noctis.”

“Maybe you should. You said you’d look into sparring.”

“Not when you’re like this.”

“Like what?”

“Irrational.”

Something in Noctis’ patience snapped like a bundle of kindling. Ravus caught his fist before he it could connect. It was like warping. The world had blurred to a noiseless absence of everything until he broke through the other side. When he warped, he had founds that there was some sense to how he came out of it. A target in his hands, or cast aside by a deflection that he could explain. Instead, he wasn’t sure what had led him to his current position; Ravus disheveled above him, the scent of his own blankets and pillows wrapping around them as the High Commander pulled away without releasing his pinned wrists. 

Noctis wanted to order Ravus to let him go. He wanted to push back with all the rage that he could mustre. Instead, there was a stunned fog descending over him, a sluggish anchor to his movements quelling the urge to fight the longer Ravus lingered over him. “Rav—”

“Stay,” the first pressure on his wrists punctuated the order, and Noctis nodded even as Ravus did move. It was just a few steps, careful and quiet. And he saw the familiar huff of a deep breath as Ravus composed himself. “Do you want this?”

“What?”

“Sex, Noctis. Is this just your heat? Or do you want this?”

Noctis groaned, mortified by the whole idea and how very much he did want Ravus back with him in the bed. He covered his eyes with one hand and nodded. “Yes.”

“Sex with me?”

“Are you trying to talk me out of it? Yes!”

Ravus rolled his eyes, “I’m trying to ensure consent, you idiot.”

“And what about you?” The look of confusion at the question was worth the annoyance of sitting up in the tangle of blankets. The loose fitting, casual clothes Noctis just realized signified that Ravus was off any sort of military duty just as rumpled and ruffled as the man himself. It was almost endearing to see the guarded arrogance Ravus wore like armour stripped back to the casual appearance of a frustrated man. Noctis indicated himself and the bed as if explaining his question; “Consent? Do you want to fuck me.”

“Of course I do.”

“Oh, of course.”

“Unless you keep talking.” It was teasing, Noctis realized too late. Ravus was teasing him, with the careful push back to his shoulder to rest back on the bed, the gentle kiss to the forehead that underscored the shift in tone Noctis hadn’t expected. But the affection was clear, and underscored months of what Noctis realized he had missed with the protective demands and permissions Ravus had implemented for him. 

Ravus wanted him. 

“Stay,” Ravus ordered again, softer than the order before. 

There wasn’t a bite to Ravus’ voice this time as he pulled away. It rumbled softly like a plea as the alpha pulled away again and moved to examine the shelves that had offered some privacy from the room at large and had been covered in seemingly meaningless trinkets and boxes Noctis hadn’t chosen for himself. Noctis took the excuse of Ravus’ infuriatingly slow search to undress, to dump the clothing to the side of the bed, to relax fully in the comfort of his little hidden nest that reminded him distantly of a quiet nook in the depths of Insomnia. 

“Ravus, now.”

He watched Ravus move, the careful and meticulous movements of trained military discipline abandoned for the loose and comfortable confident of strength. Noctis frowned as Ravus paused to take a foil packet from a box and toss it at the bed in excuse for the delay. 

“Now,” Noctis said again, feeling at least some victory as Ravus undressed. “Now or get out.”

There was a withering look from the alpha as he returned to the bed. Ravus wasted no time in regaining his control of the situation, pressing Noctis back again as the Lucian Prince submitted willingly to the unspoken order to let himself relax again. “Don’t presume to give me orders, brat.”

Noctis smirked in response and let his legs fall open again in passive invitation. “Then hurry up, asshole.”

Ravus grumbled something, but his hand moved from shoulder to hip to groin in a way that made Noctis blank on everything but the immediate sensations assaulting him as Ravus closed his hand around him. His heat drove him forward, and he recalled the interruption of the packet before there was a sweet stretch and careful reassurances and checks from the alpha above him. He had nodded and pushed back in response, twisting to gain the upper hand and sink himself over Ravus when he felt the urge to disrupt the too slow pace. Anything said between them was ignored in favour of chasing that warmth, that fullness, the pressure of having his alpha there. Around him, inside him, pressing down on him and holding him close. 

The cool touch of Ravus’ prosthetic brought him back to reality when they were locked together. Buried in the nest of pillows and blankets, Noctis made a face at the very real sensation of being stretched and full and pushed into a position of submission. Of the way the cool metal of the prosthetic felt against his hip and the heated pillows felt against his forehead. Ravus’ flesh and blood arm was trapped beneath him, pinned in place as he was pinned; like a prize. 

“You’re heavy.” Ravus made a noncommittal hum, hips rocking gently to test their position, lips brushing the heat of his neck as he refused to move further than that. The tug made Noctis whine and he slapped the arm trapped beneath him. “Stop moving.”

“I have never had such a demanding omega before.”

“Bullshit,” Noctis relaxed again as the alpha stilled to wait out the connection. The thought of the knot locking him in place against Ravus like this making him flush, which he steadfastly ignored in favour of moving them both to a position that was more comfortable for him. 

Ravus settled where he was pushed, and Noctis thought of the world beyond the little room. Ravus had been there for appearances: the appearance of the attending, conquering alpha the Empire expected him to be. Noctis felt his stomach turn as he thought of what the aftermath beyond these doors would be— the Empire expecting him to be the meek, passive plaything he had been masked as, the way the news that Ravus had spent the heat with him spreading further— of Nyx back in Lucis, and the way this whole mess could be a conquest like every Nif seemed to want it portrayed as. 

“Whatever you’re thinking,” Ravus muttered against the back of his neck; “stop it. I’m tired, you’re tired, try to sleep.”

“When are you done?”

“Soon,” the arms around him loosened; “you’ll be free soon.”

Noctis thought of Nyx as the heat cleared little by little. His Glaive back in Insomnia, the nights they spent in his little apartment in the sweltering heat of his district, the teasing coolness as the fever pitch of these moments broke between them and the teasing smile that had always greeted him in the morning afterwards. He thought of what Nyx would say, what he would do; smile and shrug? Tease him for the weakness? Try to make him forget Ravus?

He smiled. He knew what Nyx would do if he walked through those doors. He could almost hear the Glaive’s laugh and request to join them, to bully Ravus out of the bed with little pushes and careful movements. He wondered if Nyx would come to Gralea with weapons drawn. Or a diplomatic smile and an army at his back.

Noctis was free of Ravus soon enough, and the alpha turned them as he pulled away. As he let Noctis reclaim his space. 

“For an idiot, you think too much,” Ravus left the bed, throwing the condom he had retrieved from the box on the shelf into the little bin nearby. “I think it’s safe to assume that Nyx is your alpha?”

At the questioning look, Ravus offered a shrug before hiding it with a hand to where his prosthetic met flesh. “You really do wear your heart in the open, Noct. You said his name.”

“Sorry?” Noctis didn’t know if he should apologize for that, if there was an ego he had bruised in the moment or if Ravus’ expectations had already been set before any of this had happened. When he had first seen the names on the letters Noctis wrote.

There was a quick not of understanding, and Ravus was on his feet, “For our charade, I suggest you let the public see the marks I made. It will help the gossip.”

Noctis lifted a hand to his neck where the ache was setting in as the adrenaline seeped out, wondering what it would look like in the end. He watched Ravus retreat to the bathroom, and heard the water run as the heat retreated with him. Laying back, Noctis could only smell himself in the sheets and on the pillows, he could feel the roll in his belly that protested feeling empty on the tail end of his treacherous hormones. He could see the bruises on his wrists where Ravus had pinned him. Ravus was right, of course: the marks would help. It would silence doubt in the Imperial court, it would offer some new satisfaction to the story the public was making for them. It would play to the gossip they were fostering.

It would solidify Ravus’ position within Niflheim, hail him the dominant conqueror over Lucis the Nifs expected him to be. 

Noctis made a face at the idea, at the ripples it would send out in the whispers that passed from staff to citizen to spy. Of the accusations that Ravus might face in Lucis, or even Tenebrae, if Noctis stepped out of place in the story they were constructing to protect themselves.

“What now?” Ravus stopped a respectable distance from the bed, towel around his waist and his hair still dripping.

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”

“You’ll need to write to your family, again,” Ravus gathered his clothes, tying his hair back quickly rather than tend to it in any useful way. Noctis pulled himself up until his back rested against the cool wall. “After you’ve had some sleep.”

“Right.”

“I’ll have lunch sent, but I’ll be back for dinner.”

A quick nod, and Noctis wasn’t sure if he liked the way things had now moved. The transaction, the matter of fact closure to the act. For a moment, Noctis let himself try to puzzle through the confusion of Ravus’ seeming eagerness to leave. “And this?”

“This…” Ravus indicated the bed, “was a mistake.”


	13. Chapter 13

“Shit,” Noctis muttered, pressed hard against the heavy blankets of his bed. He felt Ravus behind him, around him, inside him, mouth moving against his shoulders while hips controlled both their pace and Noctis’ movements. His heat-addled focus narrowed to the slow pulse and movement, the easy complementary push and pull between them as he struggled not to let himself go too far. Get too lost in the sensations that seemed to be heightened the more he tried to ignore them. 

“Easy,” Ravus returned, lips moving against Noctis’ heated skin. 

“Better be imagining that smirk,” despite the heat of the room, the clinging blankets they hadn’t quite made it under, Noctis shivered under the attentions. He whined as Ravus moved them to a more comfortable position together to wait out the last harried pulses. To wait for their breath to catch up to them and the urge to move stuttered and seeped out of endorphin loosed limbs.

“You can relax,” Ravus said, adjusting them until he was satisfied and settled on the sheets; “for a few minutes, you know.”

Despite his ire at being pushed and pulled and moved to accommodate the whims of this alpha, Noctis was relaxed. It was an easy heat with Ravus, their sniping and petty jabs joined by a fight for control; biting remarks met with actual bites at times. And Noctis could feel himself easing into the later stages of comfort at the idea of spending this time with Ravus— the late stages of a heat, where it was no longer just a wild impulse he could let himself get swept away in, but an actual union where they just fit. Where he had felt himself move and tease and settle to ease the alpha into him until his world narrowed to the man rewarding his pliant submission with kisses and comforts and roaming hands searching out pleasures. 

Noctis groaned in annoyance as Ravus settled too easily, hips stuttering as a moment triggered them both again into lazy action before the warmth fully drained from them; “Thought this was a mistake.”

“It is. You have an alpha and I’m not going to fight him for you.”

He thought of Nyx. Of the sun-kissed Galahdian who he had chosen of his own accord. Of the comfortable routine that had been disrupted. He thought of the easy confidence of the Glaive, the playful touches that he couldn’t help but compare to the more controlled alpha he had allowed to claim him for some persistent charade in imprisonment. Ravus was not a terrible alternative, he supposed, but he wasn’t Nyx. He wasn’t the vibrant, confident, and unceremonious man Noctis had preferred for the easy charm and indulgent attitude. 

But he didn’t hate Ravus. Not really. Not as much as he would have said in the wake of Ravus’ own insecurities. There was a colder control about him; calculating methods that served as a means to view the trysts of the last few days as a battleground. Ravus unable to stay fully composed as Noctis challenged him in some way or another s the heat ate away at his patience and willingness to just sit still and wait it out. And there was a comfort in the way Ravus seemed to know exactly what careful or teasing movements would chase the frustration from him. 

But it was hormonal, instinct, and all the things he knew were not going to mean shit as an excuse if Nyx decided he disliked the idea of Ravus in his place during this captivity. But he knew Nyx. He knew that the man would be more concerned with the eyes constantly on them, tracking Ravus’ comings and goings from the room while Noctis was ‘indisposed’ and calculating a moment to strike to prove some weakness they could capitalize on.

Nyx would have encouraged the survival tactic for the moment, if not the exact methods. But the little seed of guilt and doubt remained, even as Ravus moved away enough to give him space as he had before. 

As Ravus moved and checked the little box on the shelf by the bed again, Noctis settled to watch him, to trace the lines and scars with his gaze when he had refused to do so with his hands. Ravus was pale, and solid— cold and silver, in Noctis’ mind, like the snows outside that blanketed the grey city below or the pallid walls of the Tenebraean palace he remembered— with the creeping scars on his shoulder of some accident that had cost him the arm. He could appreciate Ravus’ quiet nature— that spark of competent protectiveness that seemed inherent in everything he did— and level-headed tendencies. He could appreciate the measured temperance and careful diplomacies that had been mastered as a means of survival; but here, between them, there was a familiar ease to his movements and calm. Despite the sniping and complaints, Ravus seemed almost himself as Noctis remembered him. 

“Why,” Ravus spoke without turning to face the bed, the lid of the little box snapping into place; “are you staring?”

“Not staring,” Noctis refused to look away when Ravus did turn toward him; the scars he knew were there hidden in the dim light, and Noctis felt old habits to ask about them well up. But it would bring a meaning and attention to something more than just a physical touch. 

The sun had dipped beneath the edge of the Gralea caldera hours ago, before Ravus’ arrival with his own frustrations a dark cloud trailing after him. It had left the room dimmed— lit only by the faint guiding lights that outlined the edge of the room before the main lights were engaged— but Noctis moved off the bed all the same as Ravus cleaned himself off as searched for the stash of water they had left by the bed. “Where are you going?”

“Shower,” Noctis answered, “clean up.”

“You don’t get to give me orders, brat.”

“You like when I give you orders.”

It was a mistake.

The breathless little half-laugh he had heard from Ravus at the quip was a mistake. The afternoons spent keeping up appearances, the evening spent tangled like that, the morning sharing breakfast, was all a mistake. Noctis felt the dread of it twist in his gut. But he had pushed for it. Teeth bared, anger up, he had challenged Ravus the moment he had walked through the door that afternoon. They had baited each other, swiped at each other over the careless comment that now festered between them. Even with the water running down his back, Noctis could only hear it like a mantra. This was a mistake. 

The soaps Ravus preferred being in his shower was a mistake. Prompto’s chipper greeting— loud enough for the MTs beyond the door to hear— was a mistake in how natural it felt. How normal things felt when they should be anything but. He had barely even thought about the loss of his magic in days, weeks if he was honest about it, and the realization that he may have been idle in his captivity was a troubling shock that broke through the warm haze of his fading heat.

He scratched at his scalp with the shampoo that smelled vaguely like Ravus, and knew that the heat was the only excuse he had for any of this— these mistakes. The coiled desperation that had built in him until something had to snap was all he could fall back on to explain why he had even thought this was an acceptable idea in the first place; the complacency had followed in the steps of some new routine that had kept him frustrated and confined, and entirely too comfortable. When he left the shower and returned to the rooms, Ravus was mostly dressed again and smoothing fresh sheets over the bed. The lights had been raised and a curtain parted to reveal the golden glow of the city below. It was a sweetly domestic scene that Noctis wanted to blot from his mind, so he settled for throwing his damp towel at Ravus before digging for fresh clothes to sleep in. 

“Go wash.”

“I called for dinner.” Ravus responded; “Answer the door when it arrives.”

“I was just going to let it sit in the hall,” Noctis muttered and finished the task of remaking the bed once he had dressed in boxers and one of the t-shirts that had made its way into his gifted wardrobe. It would be a late dinner, which meant something light. For whatever reason, the kitchens of Zegnautus Keep had been told of his newly confirmed cycle and had taken to trying to provide light Lucian fare with fruits and drinks more than anything of substance. He blamed Prompto for the change, or Ravus. 

Nyx had taken to cooking breakfasts and dinners for them. Showing off as he added dashes of spice to meat-rich dishes with a grin. It had been a gesture of doting on him as he settled and lounged and watched from the little nook where Nyx’s bed was. He had grinned when he felt he was being watched, flipping the mixtures in the pans with a flair, before getting Noctis up to help at least set the table. 

Here, there was none of that. 

Ravus didn’t cook. Or if he did, there was no place for him to in the confines of these rooms. But he doted in other ways; in his own ways. In ways that gave them both breathing space and working space without the threat of Imperial eyes on them. There were ways that Ravus anticipated needs before Noctis knew them, orders issued to outsiders to give him privacy, the wall being erected around them as the Imperial court was kept at bay. But Noctis found that he had missed the sweet domesticity that Nyx tended to thrive on— the stability of a singular home and tasks he could determine for himself.

When the food arrived, Noctis noted it was more substantial than he expected. A few covered trays were hot to the touch as the staff set them down with a knowing smile. Noctis ignored the look and set the table as Ravus left the bathroom and dressed to join him. There were small considerations— the needs being managed, the protective plans, the little touches as they moved around each other in comfort— that Ravus had displayed. 

“You’re thinking,” Ravus said as he moved the trays and all but pushed Noctis into a seat.

“I’m allowed to do that.”

“Certainly. I’m just surprised by it.”

“Why this time?”

“Eat something,” rather than an answer, the order came with a plate of light meat and rice set down before him. The Lucian staples suspect as he prodded at them for some disastrous Nif adjustment that destroyed the simple meal. “Things should be back to normal in the next day or two?”

Noctis nodded, offering a little hum in acknowledgement as he wondered what ‘normal’ was supposed to mean now. Letters, certainly; or testing the waters of what further information and details he could push out to Lucis. There would be little else he could do without getting either access to deeper within the Keep, or getting out into the city without the strict supervision. “Is there a Lucian embassy?”

“Why? What are you planning?”

“Just think I should talk to the ambassador again.”


	14. Chapter 14

“Good to see this all again,” Libertus said as the ferry slotted into place between the docks. The city was almost nothing like what they had left behind years ago. New buildings rose above what Nyx remembered had been nearly levelled by the unforgiving force of the Nif forces as they moved from island to island to strengthen their hold in the Occupation. The gleamed in the sun as if they had always been there— a fresh city built over the remnants of the sleepy little port town Nyx remembered thinking had been such a busy place in his childhood— with their crimson markings and Imperial flags strung up to remind anyone entering the islands that Galahd was not sovereign territory anymore. 

“Yeah, home sweet annexed territory,” Crowe muttered as she shouldered her bag. “Let’s just get a move on. I don’t trust all these eyes.”

“Come on, Crowe,” Libertus nudged her with a grin, feet finding solid ground among the crowd; “Don’t pretend you’re not at least a little happy to see home.”

“If you call this home.”

White concrete dominated what Nyx vaguely remembered as the red and russet brick and stone quarried from the mountains. The smooth surfaces were left unmarked by anything more than a Nif wyvern or clear names and numbers noting the landmarks for more organized maps. The streets had changed, from what little they could see beyond the busy chaos of the port, with fresh pavement and crisp lines looking new despite the years that had passed since they must have been laid down. The only indication of anything non-Nif in the immediate area was a memorial statue set on a patch of green and clipped grass that looked more like plastic than actual Galahdian grass. No natural curves or chaotic mess like Lucis, just the narrow and straight disciplined lines and unimpeachable standards of the Nifs. 

“I do, and so should-”

“Enough,” Nyx interrupted, giving Libertus a little shove forward to keep him walking and waving a hand in greeting to a familiar hunter waiting to greet them. “We’re not even staying in the city. Let’s get moving. Dave!”

“Nyx! Long time, buddy,” Dave slipped the keys of the waiting truck into Nyx’s hand as part of an affectionate greeting. The grin and hug not unusual among the crowd already parting around them to make their own ways either to waiting cars or deeper into the city. Dave muttered before pulling back; “Papers in the glovebox, checkpoint already rooted through the truck when I brought it in.”

“Thanks,” Nyx nodded as he tossed the keys to Libertus, which were promptly snatched by Crowe before any move to claim driving privileges was secured. “Galdin was quiet, but take the long way back to Meldacio.”

“Got some work lined up at Cauthess,” was announced a little louder for the sake of the crowd before Dave joined the departures back to Lucis.

Crowe and Libertus climbed into the cab of the truck without a second thought. Nyx gathered their bags into the bed of the vehicle with him, grinning as his friends just rolled their eyes as he took the least comfortable option. He wanted the fresh air and the sights he had missed for years. He wanted the distraction of the countryside, where he didn’t need to acknowledge that not all was right in Eos despite the uneasy truce that had covered most of countries. 

The image of the controlled and organized civilization did not last further than the immediate blocks around the port. Though the city had stretched further along the rocky coast— taking over what few sandy beaches there were immediately available— beyond the city limit checkpoints had been a more familiar press of wilderness. Nyx revelled in the sight of the more familiar thick forests as they passed through an MT guarded checkpoint that just waved them through after glancing at the documents Dave had planted for them. 

Once free of the threat of the controlled city, Nyx relaxed as much as the bumpy ride through the rural roads would let him. The Nifs had ensured the roads were paved in their favoured conquests, but no one could accuse Galahd as holding favour with the Nifs for very long. The trees and mountains had closed in shortly after the end of the city limits, thinning only for the rough roads that led to the red stone quarries of the mountains and the occasional farm or ranch. There was no traffic to greet them, no chaotic curl and curve of the roads save for what was absolutely necessary to cut through the forest— the tallest structures were the Nif buildings left kilometres behind them, with nothing but the familiar wilderness Nyx hadn’t realized how much he had missed. 

Signs for ranches had him smiling as he thought of Noctis here. Noctis next to him in the bed of this truck, taking in the new sights that Nyx had almost forgotten about. The irregular cries of chocobos trailed after them as they moved past ranches hidden by the trees, and Nyx could almost picture Noctis’ delight when he saw them. Or when the road would curve along the edges of the shimmering shoreline— sunlight dancing amid the sails as ferries and fleets of fishermen came and went as if nothing had ever changed. There had been fishing spots and havens he had told Noctis about— craggy shores and deceptively deep canyon rivers running through the bones of the old Solheim Empire half buried in childhood memory— and had promised to show him one day. 

The air was salted as they passed the rocky cliffs; sheer drops that the roads carved by generations of walking, carts, and now cars skirted as more modern parking spots and signs indicating a scenic lookout indicated the points that had been safe to wander to the thin strips of beach below. To the other side, as the mountains rose to dominate the rest of the landscape. The thin lines of impassable cliffs on the shores and the imposing obstruction of the protective mountains had staved off plenty of conflicts in Galahd’s history, Nyx knew (mostly because Libertus had never shut up about Galahd’s own strengths in the past), until the Empire developed their airships and dropships and the flying bases that could anchor them in almost any conquered terrain. 

Nyx still remembered the last time he was on the same roads and had watched those beasts of machines overhead. He remembered the crack of trees that had stood for thousands of years filling the air as the largest of the airships landed to distribute their troops through the already ravaged landscape. He remembered the nights before filled with the glow of fires as towns and farms buried deep in the protective valleys burned as the Empire attempted to secure their foothold further inland. 

This would have been a true home coming if Noctis had been next to him to glare at the passing Nif vehicles with him.

Nyx smiled as they passed the fencing that was universally Nif for “do not bother with this place.” The chain link a loose, informal barrier as the growing stretch of clearings meant towns and farms were gathered in closer clusters as the valleys spread wider and the signs started offering more detail than just distances. Familiar names started to appear, houses glimpsed through the trees. Some were the rustic and well-worn red stone the area was famed for— the whole town a standing testament to the quarries the Nifs had taken over— others the stark and blinding colour of fresh snow. Lumps of Nif-designed houses littered the spaces where Nyx’s memory conjured up visions of smoldering ruins, spreading like a plague to where the general store, the school, the hospital had been. 

“That’s just wrong,” Libertus muttered where the truck had pulled to a stop and Crowe cut the engine. Nyx followed his line of sight though he had already been searching for the same landmark. 

The white, uniform lines were a travesty in the town already. But even the edge of it here, with the familiar lane and unpaved lot, set Nyx’s stomach churning. “They couldn’t even put in something good.”

“Pretty sure that’s a cinema, boys,” Crowe said as she hopped out and looked around to get her bearings. 

“Have some respect, Crowe!” Libertus spat in the direction of the sacrilegious building standing there, empty and dead for the day, it’s presence alone sapping the soul of the town like the other landmarks. “That used to be the bar!”

The posters that were carefully displayed along the wall were for movies Nyx had never heard of, the awning trimmed in lights reflecting the afternoon sun as if they were innocent in the tragedy they represented. Scowling, he grabbed his bag and climbed down from the truck bed; “Let’s just get moving.”

He tried not to think of the Nifs with entertainment like that. Not when they had torn down or taken away the few things he had ever admitted to really loving. Building some Nif shell in its place had been insult to injury, and he ignored the little voice that warned him that Noctis was being torn down too right now, rebuilt in the Nif image.

The old houses had remained mostly untouched by the violence that had pushed so many away from the little towns. Parks had been opened where landmarks unique to the town and their own memory of it had stood. The foundations of houses they once knew stood as markers for gates and fences, the sturdy tree Nyx remembered as the meeting point in Libertus’ childhood yard now a this stump base for some model airship toy children had claimed as part of a playground. The worst was the walls that had not quite fallen, or were too short to really be worth the effort to the Nifs so far from any resort they wanted to sell Galahd as. Nyx could see the smudges in irregular patterns like dots peppering what ruins still stood along the quiet street: bullet holes ripped through stone and mortar when the last uprising was quelled, and Nyx could barely remember why that area had been the target. 

Particularly when his own home still seemed a perfect memory at the end of its long lane into the edge of the trees that threatened to swallow the town again. The only difference— Nyx thought as he took the lead toward the achingly familiar front garden and the haunting dark picture windows— was the colour of the door. A defiant pattern of grey and black against a slowly creeping plague of white and red. 

“Still causing trouble,” Crowe smiled as she hurried ahead, beaming at the little silver knocker that was only really visible in the right angle when it reflected the afternoon light. She lifted the hammered tin image of a Lucian crest with far more enthusiasm than needed, and Nyx had to smile at the small rebellions. 

The knocker had barely made its first strike against it’s equally beaten out plate before the door was flung open and Crowe had her arms full of a young Galahdian woman with traditional braids, beads, and decorations tangled in her hair; “I knew you’d love it, Crowe!”

Nyx dropped his bag in a show of dramatic insult, biting back a grin only with the force of military discipline; “No hug for big brother?”

Half a world away, Noctis was trapped somewhere in the confines of a Nif fortress, and the other half was bent over codes and books and half-formed plans. But here, in Galahd, with Selena launching herself at him with a squeal of delight, Nyx almost felt like he had come home. 

Now he just needed Noctis to complete it.


	15. Chapter 15

The gardens of Zegnautus Keep were just as much an exhibit of successful conquests as the quiet halls of the residential quarters. The first time he has set foot in the tiered gardens that crossed three open floors within one secluded corner of the monstrous Keep, Noctis hadn’t known what to make of it all. The great Tenebraean Oak in the centre of the room was haloed by the light of the grey Gralean day through the thick windows that had replaced large sections of the familiar sterile walls. Stairs of iron and glass wrapped their way around the centrepiece close enough to touch the smooth and pallid bark that suggested the tree had been transplanted young and barely managed to survive its theft. 

“They planted it,” Ravus explained, “when Tenebrae first fell to Niflheim.”

“Twelve years ago?”

“Four hundred, Noctis. Fenestala Manor is not the whole of Tenebrae. No more than Insomnia is the whole of Lucis.”

“Right.” There were no Lucian flowers scattered through the levels of the gardens. Pieces of makeshift prairie were labelled as other corners of the world Noctis couldn’t remember ever visiting. Wetland blooms were mapped as cuts from darker forests and shared planters and displays with berries and fruit trees Noctis didn’t recognize. 

These were the only plants to cross the defined borders that the Nifs seemed determine to reshape. The world condensed to little corners of the Keep like the trophies decorating the residential halls and corner lounges. When they walked the meandering path defined by the unyielding glass and iron barriers and delicately gilded fences, they started beneath the Tenebrean oak and picked a direction among the sprawling flowerbeds meant to mimic the fields Noctis vaguely recalled from his youthful visit. The perfumes of a dozen transplanted flowers mingled in the air and he could almost close his eyes and remember ever curl and curve of the halls in Fenestala Manor. He remembered the bright arches of the open halls where the vines crept in, and the alien sight of flowers he had understood could grow nowhere else in Eos. There had been those clinging, clawing strips of blooming ivy flowers he looked at now, growing wild in the memory of the guest rooms, scenting the quiet nights with their fragrance. He had remembered stopping at every seemingly wild flower pushing its way through old cracks and broken stones in his childhood, and seeing them now confined to set barriers seemed wrong in comparison. 

He remembered the way he had trailed after Ravus through those same halls like a shadow. 

Even in the midst of the bright colours and pretty smells of a garden maintained and controlled by Nif neurotics, Noctis found that he didn’t stray too far from wherever Ravus would eventually settle. Drawn back to the great tree that seemed a centrepiece in the quiet gardens. 

“Galahd,” Ravus said when their route finally took them down one of the richer corridors of thick greenery that seemed almost wild next to the careful maintenance of the other corners. 

They visited the gardens when Noctis was bored. When he needed to move and run and they had yet to find a suitable reason to put a sparring sword in his hand and test the Nif rumour mills. The gardens were safe and docile, a reflection of whatever picturesque amusements Nifs seemed to think appropriate for a noble omega. With Prompto, it was easier to run the paths and pretend he was home— somewhere in the parks of Insomnia with Gladio on his heels ready to bark at him to pick up the slack— but with Ravus, the sedate strolls forced him to stop and look at the collection of strange plants more than he had with Prompto. He had past these lush ferns and wild flowers before, the stretch of twisted trees not given enough room decorated by flowering ivy and crawling vines. 

But he hadn’t actually stopped to think of where they had come from. The little flowers of fire orange and reds— persistent in their seeming ability to grow anywhere in the exhibit regardless of what the little information plaques said they should be— reminded him of Nyx. 

Something twisted in his stomach at the thought of Nyx. The tryst and companionship of Ravus already growing cold as things had finally cooled down. Not cool enough to stop Ravus from touching his arm, or back, to guide him somewhere, and not enough for Noctis to allow it when they weren’t under the critical scrutiny of the Nif Imperial court. But enough for Noctis to realize that the pit that had settled in his belly was a seed of guilt he couldn’t reason away once the heat had faded. 

Nyx was not there, but he was a very real and solid presence between them. A constant barrier for Ravus to push against and for him to hide behind. Nyx would have laughed at that. 

“Have you been to Galahd?” Noctis wasn’t sure if it was a safe topic to discuss. Not when he was looking at the strange plants that sparked vague reminders of Nyx’s preferred soaps and colognes.

“Yes,” Ravus said. Colourful lilies and multiple tones of the flowers clung to robust vines growing along the trickle of fabricated streams, Noctis wondered what Galahd really would be like. If the wild images conjured in his mind would be faithful to the reality. “And I’ll be going back there soon.”

“What? Why?”

“Orders, unfortunately.”

“Aren’t you the High Commander?” The roll of Ravus’ eyes was enough to make Noctis feel like he had suddenly stepped into something that was far out of his depth. Despite the letters and information he had been confident in sending home, the information collected and the minor rebellions he has managed, Noctis realized very suddenly and very coldly that he had been indulged because of Ravus. Because of the pageantry they had agreed to project together. “What does that mean for me here?”

“You’re not asking if you can come?”

“Would the Chancellor let you take me?”

“To Galahd, no,” Ravus paused at the end of the little path through the mock forest and turned them back to the centre of the room where the oak’s wide canopy shadowed everything. “But I have laid the ground work for other places.”

“Like?”

“Altissia.”

“Altissia,” Noctis repeated, having expected to hear Ravus’ home country instead. Or the city beyond the Keep’s walls. “Why Altissia?”

“It’s romantic, I’m told. A place where newlyweds tend to go.”

“Right.” 

“Keep up, Noctis,” Ravus stopped before the pitiful display of fading Sylleblossoms. He added a mocking sneer; “darling.”

“Fuck you.”

“Eloquent as always, boy. Those plans will be made when I return from dealing with Galahd.” 

“What’s being dealt with in Galahd?” There were few nobles living in the Keep under Imperial care, Noctis knew. There were no wandering lords and ladies of the Niflheim to eavesdrop or fuss over conversations in the gardens. But there was staff. Staff that could appear and disappear at any moment; who never seemed to be listening or watching, but Noctis knew that the gossip they were working to churn had to be spread somehow. Noctis folded his hands before him and tried to ignore the instinct to make demands of his own; “Do you know when you’ll be back?”

“No,” Ravus said; “But we’ll talk before I go.”


End file.
